THE  LIBRARY 


THE  UNIVERSITY 


OF  CAL  IFORNIA 


LOS  ANGELES 


IN  MEMORY  OF 
MRS.  VIRGINIA  B.  SPORER 


OF  THE 


19th  CENTURY 


FRENCH    DRAMATISTS 


OF  THE 


i9th  CENTURY 


BY 

BRANDER    MATTHEWS,    D.C.L., 

PROFESSOR  OF  DRAMATIC  LITERATURE  IN  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 


FOURTH   EDITION, 
BROUGHT  DOWN   TO   THE  END  OF  THE  CENTURY 


NEW   YORK 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


COPYRIGHT,  1881,  1891, 
BY  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS. 

COPYRIGHT,  1901, 
BY  BRANDER  MATTHEWS. 


AH  rights  reserved. 


TO 


EDMUND   CLARENCE   STEDMAN. 


Kpiaaov  fie^irofievu  rev  aKwepev  %  /&fa  Aw^ev. 

THKOC.  viii.  83. 


2041715 


PREFACE. 


IT  is  not  yet  sixty  years  since  the  Romanticists  and 
the  Classicists  first  met  in  battle-array ;  and  it  is  but 
little  more  than  fifty  years  since  Hernani  sounded  his 
trumpet,  and  the  hollow  walls  of  Classicism  fell  with 
a  final  crash.  This  half-century  is  a  period  of  no  slight 
importance  in  the  history  of  the  drama :  it  is  one  of 
the  two  epochs  when  the  plays  of  France  have  been 
conspicuously  and  incomparably  superior  to  the  plays 
of  any  other  country ;  the  earlier  epoch  was  when  the 
French  stage  saw  in  rapid  succession  the  newest  works 
of  Corneille,  of  Moliere,  and  of  Racine.  Although,  with 
our  ownership  of  Shakspere  constantly  in  mind,  we 
may  not  be  willing  to  allow  that  the  French  have 
reached  the  highest  pinnacle  of  the  drama,  we  can  see 
clearly  enough  that  it  is  in  the  drama  that  they  have 
mounted  highest.  If  we  seek  to  know  why  this  is, 
why  they  have  done  better  work  in  the  drama  than  in 
any  other  department  of  literature,  it  is  easy  (although 


vi  Preface. 

perhaps  not  altogether  sufficient)  to  answer  that  it  is 
because  the  dramatic  is  the  form  best  suited  for  the 
expression  of  certain  qualities  in  which  the  French 
excel  the  men  of  other  races.  Chief  among  these 
national  characteristics  are  a  lively  wit,  a  love  of  effect 
for  its  own  sake,  a  gift  for  writing  beautiful  prose, 
and  a  passion  for  order  and  symmetry  and  clear- 
ness. These  are  precious  qualities  to  the  dramatist ; 
and,  just  as  they  did  their  share  toward  the  beauty  of 
the  comedy  and  the  tragedy  which  amused  and  moved 
the  people  of  Paris  and  the  court  of  the  king  in  the 
age  of  Louis  XIV.,  so  they  now  help  to  make  the 
present  drama  of  France  what  it  is.  The  plays  of 
Corneille,  of  Moliere  and  of  Racine,  have  been  written 
about  superabundantly ;  while,  so  far  as  I  know,  the 
story  of  the  more  modern  French  drama  has  nowhere 
been  told.  Now  and  again  one  may  chance  on  the 
portrait  of  an  individual,  but  a  picture  of  the  whole 
period  is  not  to  be  found  anywhere.  For  this  reason, 
I  have  sought  in  the  following  pages  to  give  an  outline 
of  the  course  of  the  drama  in  France  from  the  first 
quarter  of  this  century  to  the  present  time.  In  the 
attempt  to  embrace  the  whole  I  have  been  forced  to 
neglect  some  of  the  parts,  and  to  pass  with  but  casual 
attention  over  more  than  one  dramatist  of  note,  —  Casi- 
mir  Delavigne,  for  example,  Alfred  de  Musset  (who, 
in  spite  of  his  genius  and  of  the  latter-day  success  of 
certain  of  his  comedies,  was  a  dramatist  only  second- 


Preface.  vii 

arily,  and,  so  to  speak,  by  accident),  Frangois  Ponsard, 
and  Mme.  de  Girardin,  among  the  dead ;  M.  Jules  San- 
deau,  M.  Ernest  Legouve,  M.  Edouard  Pailleron,  and 
M.  Edmond  Gondinet,  among  the  living. 

In  an  earlier  and  less  complete  condition,  most  of  the 
chapters  which  make  up  the  book  have  already  appeared 
here  and  there  in  various  reviews  and  magazines.  Be- 
fore taking  its  appointed  place  in  these  pages,  each 
chapter  has  been  carefully  revised,  often  enlarged,  and 
in  all  cases  "brought  down  to  date."  Space  has  been 
found  for  more  minute  criticism  and  for  more  ample 
quotation  than  was  possible  in  the  scant  quarters  of  a 
serial.  It  will  be  noted  that  the  French  titles  of  plays 
have  been  turned  into  English  whenever  a  translation 
appeared  possible  and  profitable ;  and  the  use  of 
French  has  been  conscientiously  avoided,  save  where 
no  English  equivalent  could  be  found  for  a  technical 
term,  and  in  an  occasional  specimen  quotation  of  the 

r 

verse  of  Victor  Hugo  or  Emile  Augier,  to  which  no 
translation  would  do  justice. 

I  take  pleasure  in  expressing  my  thanks  here  to  a 
friend,  who,  in  spite  of  our  constant  disagreement  as  to 
the  relative  value  of  M.  Augier  and  M.  Dumas,  has  lent 
me  the  aid  of  his  literary  skill  and  of  his  knowledge  of 
the  modern  French  drama,  as  he  did  before,  when  the 
1  Theatres  of  Paris '  was  passing  through  the  press. 

B.    M. 

NEW  YORK,  October,  1881. 


viii  Preface. 


NOTE  TO   THIRD   EDITION. 

To  the  second  edition  of  this  book,  published  in 
1891,  there  was  added  a  chapter  covering  the  years 
of  the  ninth  decade;  and  the  present  edition  is  now 
enlarged  by  a  final  chapter  considering  the  condition 
of  the  French  drama  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY,  February,  1901. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

PREFACE   v 

CHAPTER. 

I.  THE  ROMANTIC  MOVEMENT i 

II.  VICTOR  HUGO 15 

III.  ALEXANDRE  DUMAS 46 

IV.  EUGENE  SCRIBE 78 

V.  EMILE  AUGIER 105 

VI.  ALEXANDRE  DUMAS  fits 136 

VII.  VICTORIEN  SARDOU 172 

VIII.  OCTAVE  FEUILLET 203 

IX.   EUGENE  LABICHE 224 

X.  MEILHAC  AND  HALEVY 243 

XI.  EMILE  ZOLA  AND  THE  PRESENT  TENDENCIES  OF  FRENCH 

DRAMA 264 

XII.  A  TEN  YEARS'  RETROSPECT:    1881-1891       .        .        .        .285 

XIII.  AT  THE  END  OF  THE  CENTURY:    1891-1900    .        .        .  303 


FRENCH    DRAMATISTS 

OF  THE 

igth    CENTURY. 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE    ROMANTIC    MOVEMENT. 

"  THERE  is  in  every  thing  a  maturity  which  must  be 
waited  for,"  said  Chamfort ;  "happy  the  man  who 
arrives  at  the  moment  of  this  maturity ! "  Toward  the 
end  of  the  first  quarter  of  this  century  it  was  evident, 
to  any  one  who  had  eyes  to  see,  that  a  moment  of 
maturity  in  the  history  of  the  French  drama  was  soon 
coming.  The  time  was  ripe  for  a  new  growth.  Else- 
where in  literature  and  in  art,  there  was  the  murmur 
of  new  life ;  in  prose  fiction  and  in  poetry,  there  had 
been  a  new  birth ;  even  on  the  stage  there  were  begin- 
ning to  be  signs  of  the  coming  of  new  blood.  And 
nowhere  else  was  there  as  much  need  of  a  renascence 
as  in  the  theatre,  where  all  was  chill  and  lifeless. 

During  the  imperial  rule  of  Napoleon  the  position 
of  the  Parisian  theatres  had  been  peculiar.  They  were 
under  the  direct  control  of  the  General  Government, 
represented  at  the  fall  of  the  empire  by  M.  de  R6mu- 
sat.  They  were  limited  in  number;  and  the  style  of 
play  each  could  perform  was  rigidly  prescribed  by  the 


2  French  Dramatists. 

imperial  decree.  To  one  theatre  the  production  of 
operas-comiques  was  permitted,  and  nothing  else ;  to 
another,  vaudevilles ;  to  a  third,  melodramas ;  while  to 
the  Theatre  Frangais  was  reserved  the  exclusive  right 
to  perform  the  pieces  of  the  classic  repertory.  The 
comedies  and  tragedies  of  Corneille,  Moliere,  Racine, 
Regnard,  Marivaux,  Voltaire,  and  Beaumarchais,  could 
be  seen  on  the  stage  of  the  Theatre  Frangais,  and 
nowhere  else.  This  lack  of  liberty  brought  about  the 
usual  result  of  restriction,  —  a  dearth  of  novelty  and  a 
desolating  monotony.  The  imperial  interference  was, 
in  part  at  least,  responsible  for  the  low  condition  into 
which  French  dramatic  literature  was  sinking  in  the 
first  ten  years  of  the  Bourbon  restoration.  At  the 
Theatre  Frangais  comedy  was  almost  childish,  and 
tragedy  was  in  its  dotage :  there  was  neither  action 
nor  animation  ;  all  was  dull,  dreary,  and  commonplace. 
Now  and  again,  in  a  minor  theatre,  there  was  an 
attempt  at  something  less  constrained :  opera-comique 
was  beginning  its  lively  career  ;  the  national  vaudeville 
had  been  renewed  by  Eugene  Scribe,  who  had  stamped 
it  forever  with  his  own  image  and  superscription  ;  and 
Pixe'r^court  and  Victor  Ducange  had  made  themselves 
masters  of  melodrama  imported  from  Germany,  and 
were  using  it  to  wring  all  hearts. 

But  the  official  theatre  and  the  official  critics  chose 
to  ignore,  even  the  existence  of  vaudeville  and  melo- 
drama, or  at  best,  to  regard  them  as  wholly  inferior 
forms  of  art,  if  indeed  they  were  not  altogether  beyond 
the  pale  of  art.  The  attitude  of  the  French  critics 
toward  such  unliterary  plays  as  vaudevilles  and  melo- 
dramas was  not  unlike  that  of  a  cultivated  New-Yorker 
toward  the  old  Bowery  Theatre,  or  that  of  a  cultivated 


The  Romantic  Movement.  3 

Londoner  toward  the  similar  Transpontine  houses. 
Such  places  might  serve  to  amuse  the  vulgar  throng ; 
but  the  plays  acted  therein  were  too  far  removed  from 
literature  to  call  for  criticism,  or  even  consideration. 
The  new  comedies  and  tragedies  brought  out  from  time 
to  time  by  the  Com6die-Frangaise  received  all  the  more 
consideration  and  criticism :  they  were  judged  accord- 
ing to  a  code  of  Draconian  severity ;  and  if  they  broke 
one  jot  or  tittle  of  the  dramatic  law,  if  they  were  found 
wanting  in  one  iota  of  dramatic  decorum,  condign  and 
exemplary  punishment  was  at  once  visited  upon  the 
hapless  author.  In  general,  however,  authors  and  critics 
were  quite  comfortably  agreed  on  what  was  fit  and 
proper  and  in  accordance  with  the  dignity  of  the  drama. 
To  be  dignified  was  the  chief  end  of  the  dramatist,  and 
both  tragedy  and  comedy  were  constantly  taking  les- 
sons in  deportment.  Never  to  infringe  upon  the  rules 
laid  down  by  Boileau,  and  discussed  by  numberless 
commentators,  was  an  equal  duty.  Slowly  and  surely 
the  desire  to  do  nothing  outside  of  the  rules,  or  in  any 
way  indecorous,  was  choking  all  life  out  of  the  drama. 
As  Mr.  Saintsbury  aptly  puts  it,  "  Each  piece  was  ex- 
pected to  resemble  something  else,  and  originality  was 
regarded  as  a  mark  of  bad  taste  and  insufficient  cul- 
ture." The  French  drama  of  the  first  quarter  of  this 
century  is  the  empty  echo  of  a  hollow  past.  Its  aim 
was  to  equal  Voltaire.  Voltaire  had  admiringly  copied 
Racine ;  Racine  had  sought  to  reproduce  in  French 
the  tragedy  of  the  Greeks  as  he  saw  it,  chiefly  through 
the  medium  of  the  Latin  adaptations ;  and  thus  there 
was  imitation  of  an  imitation,  and  no  end.  "French 
tragedy,"  said  Goethe,  "is  a  parody  of  itself."  If  the 
great  critic  thought  this  of  the  tragedy  of  Voltaire, 


4  French  Dramatist*. 

what   must   he   have  thought   of  the  tragedy  of  Vol- 
taire's feeble  followers  ? 

The  trademark  of  a  tragedy,  according  to  the  rules,, 
was  the  blind  obedience  paid  to  the  "unities."  The: 
French  critics  pretended  to  derive  from  Aristotle  a  law 
that  a  dramatic  poem  should  show  one  action  happening; 
in  one  place  in  the  space  of  one  day :  these  were  the 
unities  of  action,  place,  and  time.  As  to  the  unity  of 
action,  there  need  be  no  dispute :  any  work  of  art  must 
have  a  single  distinct  motive  and  mainspring.  But 
both  the  unity  of  time,  which  compelled  the  hurried 
massing  of  all  the  straggling  incidents  of  a  tale  into 
the  course  of  twenty-four  hours ;  and  the  unity  of  place, 
which  forbade  all  change  of  scene,  —  these  were  absur- 
dities. In  1629  a  Frenchman,  Mairet,  had  brought 
out  at  Rouen  an  imitation  of  the  Italian  Trissino's 
'Sofonisba,'  in  which  the  three  unities  appeared  for 
the  first  time.  Corneille  early  gave  in  his  adhesion  to 
the  principle,  but  found  it  hard  to  reconcile  his  prac- 
tice. Although  the  Italians  and  French  supposed  that 
they  were  imitating  the  ancients,  it  is  a  fact  that  the 
unities  of  time  and  place  were  not  erected  among  the 
Greek  tragedians  into  a  principle,  nor  does  Aristotle 
lay  them  down  as  laws.1  He  says  nothing  at  all  as 
to  the  unity  of  place  ;  and  in  speaking  of  the  unity  of 
time  he  probably  meant  merely  to  declare  the  habitual 
practice  among  the  best  dramatists.  It  is  safe  to  say 
that  not  iEschylus,  Sophocles,  nor  Euripides  ever  gave 
a  thought  to  either  the  unity  of  time  or  the  unity  of 
place.  By  accident,  and  because  of  the  physical  condi- 

1  For  an  elaborate  discussion  of  the  subject,  with  abundant  citation  of  authori- 
ties, see  the  '  Dramatic  Unities  in  the  Present  Day,'  by  Edwin  Simpson.  London. 
Triibner,  1874. 


The  Romantic  Movement.  5 

tions  of  the  Greek  theatre,  they  had  to  condense  their 
story  as  well  as  they  could,  and  to  be  sparing  of  change 
of  scene.  That  they  did  not  hesitate  to  shift  the  place 
of  action  when  it  suited  their  purpose,  there  can  be  no 
doubt.  The  '  Hecuba '  of  Euripides  is  an  instance,  and 
others  are  not  wanting. 

The  simplicity,  the  directness,  and,  above  all,  the  un- 
consciousness to  which  the  Greek  drama  owed  so  much 
of  its  poetry  and  its  power,  were  qualities  wholly  for- 
eign to  the  French  court  of  Louis  XIV.,  and  they  were 
neither  appreciated  there,  nor  in  the  main  even  under- 
stood. The  severity  and  stately  dignity  of  the  Greek 
drama,  in  great  part  the  result  of  the  circumstances 
under  which  it  was  acted,  were  foreign  to  the  turbu- 
lent and  fiery  tragedy  of  Corneille,  produced  under 
wholly  different  conditions  and  in  a  wholly  altered 
state  of  society,  with  far  more  complex  emotions.  The 
Greek  actor,  raised  in  lofty  buskins,  and  speaking 
through  a  resonant  mask,  that  he  might  be  seen  and 
heard  by  the  vast  multitude  seated  before  him  in  the 
open  amphitheatre,  was  thus  hampered  from  all  vio- 
lent action,  and  achieved  perforce  a  certain  stateliness. 
But  the  French  actor,  in  the  rich  and  elaborate  cos- 
tume of  his  own  time,  declaimed  his  verses  in  a  small 
hall,  before  a  select  audience,  many  of  whom  had  seats 
upon  the  stage,  crowding  the  performers  into  a  narrow 
lane  between  these  rows  of  spectators,  and  into  a 
narrow  space  between  these  spectators  and  the  foot- 
lights. To  attempt  to  reproduce,  under  these  conditions, 
the  massive  dignity  of  the  Greek  stage,  was  to  attempt 
the  impossible.  Of  a  certainty,  the  result  would  be 
literary  merely,  and  not  lifelike.  It  is  not  to  be  de- 
nied that  the  regularity  and  concentration  and  nudity 


6  French  Dramatists. 

imposed  on  the  dramatist  by  the  observance  of  the 
three  unities  may  at  times  have  helped  the  writer  of 
genius,  who  is  but  the  stronger  for  the  difficulties  he 
struggles  with :  the  feeble,  however,  were  made  more 
feeble  still ;  and  even  a  writer  of  genius,  like  Corneille, 
chafed  against  rigid  restrictions  he  was  not  flexible 
enough  to  get  around.  It  is  pitiful  to  see  how  the 
virile  and  vigorous  Corneille,  in  his  three  discourses 
on  dramatic  composition,  humbles  himself  before  the 
shadow  of  Aristotle  and  the  ancients,  and  begs  to  be 
allowed  to  stretch  the  "  single  day "  to,  say,  thirty 
hours,  and  to  take  as  the  "  single  place  "  a  whole  town, 
in  different  parts  of  which  the  action  may  go  on.  How 
the  bonds  hampered  the  poet  is  summed  up  concisely 
in  the  judgment  which  the  Academy,  at  Richelieu's 
order,  passed  on  Corneille's  best  play,  the  '  Cid,'  to 
the  effect  that  the  poet,  in  endeavoring  to  observe  the 
rules  of  art,  had  chosen  rather  to  sin  against  those  of 
nature. 

Racine's  calmer  genius  worked  without  revolt  under 
the  rules  which  pinioned  Corneille :  he  found  his  ac- 
count in  them.  To  him  his  characters  were  of  first 
importance,  and  what  they  felt  and  thought  and  said ; 
whereas  Corneille  was  concerned  chiefly  with  the 
action,  and  with  what  his  people  did,  —  what  they  might 
have  to  say  was  of  less  interest.  When  action  was 
proscribed,  and  little  was  done,  and  every  thing  was 
talked  about,  Corneille  chafed  against  the  tightening 
bonds ;  but  Racine  seemed  to  dance  best  in  fetters. 
And  as  Racine  came  after  Corneille,  and  became  the 
foremost  tragic  writer  of  the  magnificent  court  of 
Louis  XIV.,  the  courtly  graces  with  which  he  had 
endowed  tragedy  were  afterward  inseparable  from  it. 


The  Romantic  Movement.  7 

So  the  frank  and  free-spoken  drama  of  Corneille  gave 
way  before  the  fine-lady  muse  of  Racine, — not  any 
weaker,  it  may  be,  but  more  polished  and  mannered. 
The  twist  once  given,  French  tragic  drama  turned 
more  and  more  away  from  nature,  and  became  more 
and  more  artificial  and  barren.  Later  came  Voltaire, 
who  was  never  tired  of  finding  fault  with  Corneille, 
and  had  nothing  but  praise  for  Racine.  He  gave  in  to 
the  pseudo-unities  of  time  and  place,  although  with 
characteristic  ingenuity  he  evaded  them,  while  pretend- 
ing to  be  bound  by  them.  Voltaire  even  refined  on 
his  predecessor.  He  had  a  horror  of  the  colloquial :  he 
screwed  dramatic  diction  two  or  three  turns  higher,  and 
still  farther  from  nature.  For  his  fastidious  taste,  even 
Greek  tragedy  was  too  simple  and  too  familiar.  He 
never  by  any  chance  allowed  to  pass  any  of  those 
homely  words  which  reach  the  heart  so  readily :  these 
were  banished,  and  a  dignified  periphrasis  took  their 
place. 

Voltaire,  after  all,  was  a  man  of  genius,  however 
false  his  doctrines ;  and  the  full  feebleness  of  which 
French  tragedy  was  capable,  when  it  was  made  accord- 
ing to  his  precepts,  was  evident  only  after  his  death 
and  in  the  works  of  his  followers,  —  men  of  moderate 
talent,  able  to  copy  correctly  the  faults  of  their  elders 
and  betters.  In  their  hands  the  tragic  drama  lost 
what  little  life  it  had  left,  and  the  red  heels  of  Racine 
lengthened  into  unmistakable  stilts.  There  were  not 
wanting  those  who  now  and  then  inveighed  against 
long  monologues,  and  the  two  false  unities,  and  the 
device  of  confidants;  but  the  admirers  of  "dignity" 
and  "correctness"  made  a  firm  front  against  these 
barbarians.  As  time  went  on,  tragedy  went  from  bad 


8  French  Dramatists. 

to  worse.  Even  in  the  hot  days  of  the  Revolution, 
even  in  the  carnage  of  '93,  the  Theatre  Frangais  con- 
tinued to  bring  forth  vapid  and  innocuous  classical 
tragedies.  With  the  return  of  order  and  the  subse- 
quent worship  of  Republican  Greece  and  Rome,  the 
so-called  classic  drama  got  the  benefit  of  the  craze 
for  antiquity.  When  Napoleon  was  first  consul,  and 
after  he  was  firmly  seated  on  the  throne,  every  thing 
was  still  more  pseudo-classic.  In  tragedy,  as  in  sculp- 
ture and  in  painting,  subjects  were  chosen  almost  ex- 
clusively from  Greek  and  Roman  history  and  legend. 
Napoleon  was  anxious  to  have  a  great  dramatist  to 
illustrate  his  reign.  He  fostered  tragedy  as  well  as  he 
knew  how :  but  the  conditions  were  not  favorable  ;  the 
moment  of  maturity  had  not  yet  come ;  and  somehow 
or  other  the  great  dramatist  refused  to  be  made  to 
order. 

The  fall  of  Napoleon  and  the  restoration  of  the 
Bourbons  made  no  change  in  literary  fashions.  The 
returning  exiles  found  the  tragic  drama  as  they  had 
left  it.  In  1792,  the  year  before  the  Terror,  the  good 
Ducis  had  produced  his  '  Othello,'  in  which  a  ban- 
deau is  the  token  of  guilt,  and  the  Moor  stabs  his 
wife,  instead  of  smothering  her ;  for  the  sight,  or  even 
the  mention,  of  so  low  and  common  a  thing  as  a 
handkerchief  or  a  pillow  would  have  been  fatal  to  the 
proper  elevation  of  tragedy.  In  1815,  when  the  Bour- 
bons sat  again  on  the  throne  of  their  fathers,  there 
was  the  same  painful  effort  after  "dignity"  and  "cor- 
rectness." Holding  that  action  or  even  violent  emo- 
tion was  unseemly,  every  thing  was  told,  and  nothing 
was  done.  As  Victor  Hugo  put  it  in  the  preface 
to  his  'Cromwell,'  published  in  1827,  "Instead  of 


The  Romantic  Movement.  9 

scenes,  we  have  narrations  ;  instead  of  pictures,  descrip- 
tions. Grave  personages,  placed  like  a  Greek  chorus 
between  us  and  the  drama,  come  and  tell  us  what  is 
taking  place  in  the  temple,  in  the  palace,  in  the  public 
place,  until  we  are  tempted  to  call  out  to  them,  '  Truly  ? 
Then  why  do  you  not  take  us  there  ?  It  must  be 
amusing,  it  must  be  well  worth  seeing."1  Still  worse, 
not  only  was  real  emotion  proscribed,  but  also  the 
simple,  homely,  heartfelt  words  in  which  real  emotion 
is  wont  to  show  itself.  The  language  of  tragedy  had 
to  be  literary,  and  without  any  phrase  plucked  from 
the  roots  of  humanity,  and  racy  of  the  soil.  The 
words  such  as  Shakspere  was  wont  to  use  without 
stint,  simply  and  nobly,  were  shunned  for  a  roundabout 
pomposity.  The  simple  and  direct  word,  to  obtain 
which  without  baldness  is  the  highest  poetry,  was 
always  avoided.  In  its  stead  were  strained  and  stilted 
verses,  in  which  an  infantine  idea  was  swaddled  in  long 
robes  of  verbiage.  By  a  process  of  selection  and  puri- 
fication the  vocabulary  had  become  extremely  impover- 
ished. No  welcome  was  extended  to  new  words,  and 
good  old  words  were  constantly  getting  thrust  aside 
because  they  lacked  "dignity."  There  was  a  steady 
attempt  to  reach  the  grand  style  by  the  use  of  big 
words,  and  to  attain  elevation  by  standing  on  tip-toe. 
Laced  in  a  tight  corset  thus,  poor  tragedy  could 
scarcely  breathe,  and  was,  indeed,  well-nigh  at  its  last 
breath.  Yet  it  died  hard.  Talma,  whom  Carlyle  notes 
as  incomparably  the  finest  actor  he  ever  saw,  asked  for 
Shakspere,  and  got  Ducis,  and  left  the  stage  without 
having  played  one  part  really  worthy  of  him.  All  over 
the  tragic  drama  was  the  abomination  of  desolation. 
By  the  end  of  the  first  quarter  of  this  century,  how- 


io  French  Dramatists. 

ever,  the  moment  of  maturity  approached,  and  the  time 
began  to  be  ripe  for  revolt  against  the  rigid  restraints 
and  monotonous  mannerism  of  the  Classicists.  During 
the  forcible-feeble  reign  of  the  Bourbons,  a  new  genera- 
tion, born  in  the  thick  of  the  Napoleonic  combats  and 
conquests,  had  grown  to  manhood.  It  was  restless 
and  militant,  and  it  had  a  congenital  impatience  of 
inherited  authority.  A  change  came  over  the  spirit 
of  the  scene  :  instead  of  a  slumber  like  unto  death,  there 
were  signs  of  a  general  awakening.  In  all  depart- 
ments of  art  there  were  wars,  and  rumors  of  wars. 
The  effect  of  Mme.  Je  StaeTs  precepts  on  the  one 
hand,  and  of  Chateaubriand's  practice  on  the  other, 
was  beginning  to  be  felt.  Byron  and  Scott,  and  our 
own  Cooper,  were  getting  themselves  read  in  France 
as  no  foreign  authors  ever  had  been  read  there.  A 
knowledge  of  Goethe  and  of  Schiller  was  spreading 
slowly.  Weber's  '  Freischiatz,'  sadly  mutilated,  it  is 
true,  was  sung  with  success.  In  art,  pictorial  and 
plastic,  in  architecture,  in  music  as  well  as  in  poetry, 
both  lyric  and  dramatic,  there  was  turmoil  and  ebul- 
lition. From  Byron,  in  a  measure,  came  a  spiritual 
unrest  and  a  mild  misanthropic  pessimism  ;  and  from 
Germany  came  a  certain  tendency  to  vehement  exag- 
geration. Like  the  movement  headed  by  Wordsworth, 
the  movement  headed  by  Hugo  was  "a  great  move- 
ment of  feeling,  not  a  great  movement  of  mind." 

The  publication  of  Victor  Hugo's  'Odes  et  Ballades' 
was  the  signal  for  a  general  revolt  against  the  estab- 
lished forms  ;  and  it  began  to  be  evident  that  an  artistic 
revolution  impended,  although  where  the  first  rising 
might  be  expected  was  doubtful.  But  in  1827  the  best 
actors  of  Eigland  —  Kean,  Young,  Charles  Kemb]e,  and 


The  Romantic  Movement.  1 1 

Macready  —  crossed  the  Channel,  and  revealed  the 
English  drama  to  the  Parisians.  No  greater  contrast 
could  well  be  imagined  than  the  tumultuous  action  of 
Shakspere,  and  the  decorous  declamation  of  French 
classic  tragedy.  One  enthusiastic  admirer  of  the  Eng- 
lish performances  said  to  Charles  Kemble,  "Othello! 
voila,  voila  la  passion,  la  trage"die.  Que  j'aime  cette 
piece  !  il  y  a  tant  de  remue-mtnage  !  "  J  In  December, 
1827,  a  few  weeks  after  the  English  actors  had  left 
Paris,  Victor  Hugo  published  his  '  Cromwell,'  a  his- 
torical drama  in  five  acts,  accompanied  by  a  preface, 
which  was  at  once  a  protest  against  the  prevailing  taste, 
a  plan  of  reform,  and  a  declaration  of  war.  Obviously 
the  theatre  was  to  be  the  battle-ground  of  the  factions  : 
nowhere  else  could  they  fight  hand  to  hand  and  face 
to  face ;  nowhere  else  would  there  be  so  stubborn  a 
resistance  to  the  new  gospel. 

In  every  group  there  is  an  individuality,  acting  as  a 
pivot,  around  which  the  others  gravitate,  just  as  a 
system  of  planets  revolves  around  the  sun.  Among 
the  impatient  romanticists  this  central  individuality 
was  Victor  Hugo.  He  was  the  happy  man,  who,  to  use 
Chamfort's  phrase  cited  at  the  beginning  of  this  chap- 
ter, "  arrived  at  the  rrfoment  of  maturity."  More  multi- 
farious and  of  higher  genius  than  any  of  his  compan- 
ions-in-arms,  Hugo  was  well  fitted  to  be  a  chief.  He 
was  void  of  fear,  and  he  believed  in  himself.  His 
friends  and  followers  believed  in  him  and  in  the  right- 
eousness of  their  common  cause,  and  they  made  ready 
for  battle.  The  political  debates  and  disturbances  which 

1  "  There,  there's  passion  for  you,  and  tragedy  I  How  I  love  that  play ! 
There  is  so  much  of  a  rumpus  in  it."  —  Mrs.  KEMBLE'S  'Recollections  of  a 
Girlhood.'  New  York:  Holl,  1879.  P-  "^ 


12  French  Dramatists. 

led  to  the  final  fall  of  the  Bourbons,  in  1830,  were 
scarcely  more  acrimonious  than  the  contemporaneous 
romantic  attacks  on  the  Classicism  which,  like  the  ex- 
iled family,  had  learnt  nothing,  and  forgotten  nothing. 
"  Something  of  the  intensity  of  the  odium  theologicum 
(if,  indeed,  the  cestheticum  be  not  in  these  days  the 
more  bitter  of  the  two)  entered  into  the  conflict,"  wrote 
Lowell  of  the  war  of  critics,  which  began  when  Words- 
worth proclaimed  himself  the  prophet  of  a  new  poetic 
dispensation.  And  Hugo's  disciples  were  like  Words- 
worth's, in  that  "  the  verses  of  the  master  had  for  them 
the  virtue  of  religious  canticles,  stimulant  of  zeal,  and 
not  amenable  to  the  ordinary  tests  of  cold-blooded  criti- 
cism." 

Second  only  to  Hugo,  if,  indeed,  second  even  to  him, 
came  Alexandre  Dumas,  whose  '  Henri  III. '  was  to 
shock  the  staid  frequenters  of  the  Theatre  Frangais, 
and  to  achieve  an  indisputable  and  unexpected  success 
a  full  year  before  Hugo's  '  Hernani '  was  acted.  Next 
came  Alfred  de  Vigny,  whose  '  More  de  Ve'nise '  also 
won  a  triumph  at  the  Theatre  Fran^ais  before  the 
final  fight  over  the  first  acted  play  of  Hugo.  Besides 
these  three  leaders,  there  were  Charles  Nodier  (much 
the  oldest  of  them  all),  Gerard  de  Nerval,  Th^ophile 
Gautier,  Auguste  Maquet,  Joseph  Bouchardy,  and  many 
another  as  ardent  for  the  cause  as  the  chief  himself. 

Ranged  in  battle-array  over  against  the  irregular 
band  of  Romanticists  were  the  serried  ranks  of  the 
Classicists, — men  full  of  years  and  honors,  and  all  so 
carefully  forgotten  now  of  the  public  that  their  names 
can  be  recalled  only  with  an  effort,  even  by  the  professed 
student  of  the  stage  of  that  time.  Between  the  com- 
batants, a  little  off  at  one  side,  and  perhaps  a  trifle 


The  Romantic  Movement.  13 

nearer  to  the  Romanticists  than  to  the  Classicists,  was 
a  tiny  group  of  conservatives,  who  stood  halting  between 
the  old  and  the  new.  In  his  entertaining  account  of 
this  phase  in  the  history  of  French  dramatic  literature, 
Alphonse  Royer  considers  this  group  of  conservatives 
as  Classicists,  holding  that  those  who  were  not  for  the 
Romanticists  were  against  them.  Consequently  he 
divides  the  Classicists  into  two  sets,  the  pure  Clas- 
sicists and  the  mitigated  Classicists ;  designating  by 
this  latter  name  those  whom  I  have  called  the  conser- 
vatives. The  pure  Classicists  were  the  no-surrender 
and  die-in-the-last-ditch  party,  who  brooked  no  com- 
promise with  the  Romanticists,  and  who  always  voted 
the  straight  ticket.  The  mitigated  Classicists,  or  conser- 
vatives, were  the  more  amiable  persons,  who  confessed 
some  of  the  failings  and  abuses  of  the  existing  state  of 
things,  but  believed  in  "reform  within  the  party." 

The  little  knot  of  the  mitigated,  who  thus  sought 
safety  in  the  middle  path,  had  for  its  chief  Casimir  Dela- 
vigne,  remembered  now  as  the  author  of  '  Louis  XI.' 
The  only  other  authors  of  any  permanent  value  belong- 
ing to  this  group  were  Lebrun,  whose  '  Marie  Stuart ' 
is  still  remembered;  and  Soumet,  whose  tragedy,  'Nor- 
ma,'  is  familiar  to  all  as  the  book  of  Bellini's  opera. 
Great  was  the  dismay  among  the  pure  Classicists  when 
Casimir  Delavigne  quit  the  camp,  and  set  up  for  himself 
as  the  chief  of  a  new  sect,  conciliatory  and  conserva- 
tive,—  when,  in  1829,  he  chose  the  Porte  St.  Martin 
Theatre,  instead  of  the  Theatre  Frangais,  to  produce 
his  'Marino  Faliero,'  based  on  Byron,  as  his  'Louis 
XI.'  had  been  made  out  of  Scott's  'Quentin  Durward.' 
In  like  manner  his  later  drama,  the  '  Enfants  d'Edou- 
ard,'  was  taken  from  Shakspere.  And  this  frequency 


14  French  Dramatists. 

of  imitation  was  characteristic  of  the  timid  talents  of 
Delavigne.  His  plays  lacked  boldness,  and  his  verse 
lacked  relief.  His  was  an  amiable  talent :  but  during 
the  hot  battle  between  the  Romanticists  and  the 
Classicists  was  no  time  for  a  merely  amiable  talent ;  and 
Delavigne  had  to  submit  to  be  thrust  on  one  side, 
and  remembered  rather  for  the  share  he  might  have 
taken  in  the  combat  than  for  any  positive  quality  in  the 
work  he  actually  did. 

The  interest  in  the  fight  of  the  factions  centres 
almost  altogether  around  the  two  chiefs,  Victor  Hugo 
and  Alexandre  Dumas ;  and  the  course  of  the  combat 
can  best  be  told  in  considering  their  separate  dramas. 
It  suffices  now  to  note  that  the  English  actors  left  Paris 
in  the  fall  of  1827,  and  that  Victor  Hugo  published  his 
profession  of  faith  in  the  preface  to  '  Cromwell '  before 
the  end  of  the  year.  Less  than  fifteen  months  after- 
ward Alexandre  Dumas  brought  out  his  first  acted  play, 
'  Henri  III.,'  at  the  Theatre  Frangais.  In  another 
year,  at  the  same  theatre,  came  '  Hernani,'  the  first 
acted  play  of  Victor  Hugo.  Within  eighteen  months 
'  Antony '  and  '  Marion  Delorme '  followed,  and  victory 
was  assured.  The  Romanticists,  like  Jove's  thunder- 
bolts, were  but  a  handful,  yet  they  annihilated  the 
Titans  who  had  overawed  their  predecessors. 


CHAPTER  II. 

VICTOR   HUGO. 

IN  the  year  1778  there  was  acted  in  Paris,  at  the 
Theatre  Frangais,  '  Irene,'  the  last  tragedy  of  Voltaire, 
whose  first  play,  'CEdipe,'  had  been  brought  out  at  the 
same  theatre  in  1718,  —  sixty  years  before.  On  March 
31,  at  the  sixth  performance  of  'Irene,'  the  presence  of 
the  aged  author  called  forth  the  greatest  enthusiasm. 
To  the  yet  living  Voltaire,  it  was,  as  it  were,  a  foretaste 
of  literary  immortality,  and  he  was  much  affected  by 
the  demonstrations.  "  You  smother  me  with  roses,"  he 
said,  "and  kill  me  with  pleasure." 

In  our  day  we  have  seen  but  one  sight  like  unto  this. 
On  Feb.  25,  1880,  at  the  same  Theatre  Francois  where 
Voltaire  was  honored,  was  celebrated  the  fiftieth  anni- 
versary of  the  first  performance  of  '  Hernani,'  a  play  by 
Victor  Hugo.  In  the  half-century  it  had  been  acted 
over  three  hundred  times  in  that  theatre.  The  house 
was  full  and  enthusiastic  ;  and  the  list  of  those  present 
at  this  semi-centennial  performance  holds  nearly  all  the 
notable  names  of  modern  France.  After  the  acting  of 
'Hernani,'  the  curtain  drew  up  again,  and  discovered 
that  incomparable  company  of  actors,  the  Come"die- 
Frangaise,  grouped  around  a  bust  of  Victor  Hugo  in 
the  centre  of  the  stage.  Then  from  the  ranks  of  the 
performers,  each  of  whom  was  dressed  in  the  costume 
of  the  character  he  had  acted  in  one  of  the  poet's  plays, 
came  forward  the  chief  actress  of  tragedy,  and  recited 

«5 


1 6  French  Dramatists. 

in  the  most  musical  of  voices,  and  amid  the  plaudits  of 
the  audience,  the  poem  written  for  the  occasion  by  one 
of  the  foremost  of  younger  French  poets,  —  a  poem 
which  proclaimed  that  Victor  Hugo  would  have  long 
life  before  he  had  immortality,  and  which  declared  that 
his  drama  and  Glory  had  celebrated  their  golden  wedding. 

Voltaire  has  been  dead  only  a  century,  and  already 
the  dust  lies  thick  on  his  dramatic  works.  A  hundred 
years  is  a  long  life  for  any  thing  in  literature.  What 
may  befall  Victor  Hugo's  dramas  in  a  hundred  years,  it 
were  vain  to  prophesy.  Shakspere  has  been  dead  two 
centuries  and  a  half,  and  his  plays  are  as  young  as  the 
day  they  were  born.  Victor  Hugo  does  not  lack  par- 
tisans who  declare  him  to  be  of  the  race  and  lineage 
of  Shakspere.  Mr.  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne,  for 
instance,  is  an  English  poet  and  critic  who  cannot  men- 
tion M.  Hugo's  name  without  dithyrambic  rhapsodies ; 
and  the  late  The"ophile  Gautier  was  a  French  poet  and 
critic,  who,  when  almost  on  his  death-bed,  told  a  friend, 
that,  if  he  had  the  ill-fortune  to  find  a  single  line  of 
Hugo's  poor,  he  would  not  dare  to  confess  it,  to  him- 
self, all  alone,  in  the  cellar,  without  a  light. 

Gautier,  at  least,  had  the  excuse  that  Hugo  had  been 
his  leader  in  a  fierce  fight,  and  that  it  ill  becomes  a 
soldier  to  doubt  the  captain  who  brought  the  battle  to 
an  end.  It  is  needless  to  tell  again,  and  at  length,  the 
tale  of  the  battle  between  the  Romanticists  and  the 
Classicists.  It  is  enough  to  remember  that  the  theatre 
was  the  chief  battle-ground.  Now,  for  an  assault  on  the 
stage,  Hugo  was  the  best  possible  leader.  He  was  a 
born  playwright.  Although  only  twenty-five  years  old 
when  he  put  forth  'Cromwell,'  in  1827,  he  had  already 
published  two  novels  and  two  volumes  of  poetry.  Nov- 


Victor  Hugo.  1 7 

elist  and  poet  then,  he  has  revealed  himself  since  as 
critic,  orator,  historian,  and  satirist ;  but  in  every  dis- 
guise he  shows  his  strong  native  bent  toward  the 
theatre.  His  poems  are  often  but  the  lyric  setting  of 
a  dramatic  motive :  his  novels  are  but  plays  told  in 
narrative,  instead  of  put  en  the  stage.  All  the  elements 
of  the  play  are  to  be  found  in  the  novel :  situations, 
scenery,  effects,  even  to  the  exit-speeches, — all  are 
there.  No  reader  of  the  '  History  of  a  Crime '  need  be 
reminded  how  dramatic,  not  to  say  theatrical,  he  can 
make  history.  As  an  orator,  also,  his  stage-training 
stands  him  in  good  stead :  his  oration  becomes  a  play 
with  only  one  part,  and  he  uses  as  best  he  may  the 
scenery  which  chances  to  surround  him.  In  1851,  for 
example,  pleading  in  court  against  the  death-penalty, 
he  pointed  to  the  crucifix  over  the  judge's  head,  and 
appealed  to  "  that  victim  of  capital  punishment."  It  is 
in  his  novels,  however,  that  his  dramatic  instinct  is 
most  plainly  seen.  His  methods  are  those  of  a  melo- 
dramatist.  He  plans  and  paints  his  scenery  himself, 
and  far  better  than  the  material  brush  of  the  scenic 
artist  could  do  it  ;  and  he  delights  in  the  violent  con- 
trasts always  effective  on  the  stage,  in  the  cut-and- 
thrust  repartee  of  the  theatre,  and  in  the  sharply  out- 
lined characters  whose  complexity  is  only  apparent. 

Abundant  proof  of  the  dramatic  tendencies  of  his 
youth  are  to  be  found  in  the  curious  book,  'Victor 
Hugo ;  raconte  par  un  T6moin  de  sa  Vie,'  which  is  at 
least  semi-autobiographical :  it  is  an  open  secret  that 
the  Witness  of  his  Life  was  his  wife.  In  this  we  are 
told  that  he  wrote  a  tragedy,  'Irtamene,'  at  the  age 
of  fourteen  and  an  op/ra-comiqtie,  'A  Quelque  Chose 
Hasard  est  Bon,'  before  he  was  sixteen.  Between  the 


1 8  French  Dramatists. 

two,  at  fifteen,  he  had  written  a  more  elaborate  tragedy, 
*  Athalie.'  The  witness  of  his  life  tells  us  that  it  was 
"  perfectly  regular,  in  five  acts,  with  unities  of  time  and 
place,  dream,  confidants,"  etc.  At  nineteen  he  planned 
a  play,  'Amy  Robsart,'  taken,  for  the  most  part,  from 
'Kenilworth.'  Seven  years  later  he  gave  it  to  his 
brother-in-law,  Paul  Foucher,  not  thinking  it  fit  that 
after  the  publication  of  '  Cromwell/  he  should  borrow  a 
subject.  The  play  was  acted  anonymously,  and  hissed. 
Hugo  at  once  came  forward,  and  claimed  his  share  of 
the  failure.  None  of  these  early  dramatic  attempts 
of  Hugo  has  been  published ;  but  the  witness  of  his 
life  prints  in  full  another  play,  '  Inez  de  Castro,'  written 
at  the  age  of  sixteen,  apparently  just  after  the  com- 
position of  the  optra-comique,  and  three  years  before 
the  adaptation  from  Scott. 

'  Inez  de  Castro '  is  a  remarkable  production  for  a 
boy  of  sixteen,  and  it  has  never  received  the  attention 
it  deserves  from  critics  of  Hugo's  literary  career.  We 
can  detect  in  this  youthful  sketch  the  germ  of  his  later 
dramatic  work.  Here,  in  fact,  is  Victor  Hugo  the  play- 
wright, in  the  chrysalis.  '  Inez  de  Castro '  is  a  melo- 
drama in  three  acts  and  two  interludes.  These  latter 
are  spectacular  merely,  and  call  for  no  comment.  But 
the  three  acts  of  melodrama  repay  study.  The  story 
of  the  play  need  not  be  told  here  at  length  :  it  has  a 
juvenile  want  of  profundity,  and  it  shows  a  juvenile 
love  of  the  marvellous  and  astounding.  But  the  effects 
are  not  altogether  external,  and  there  is  a  willingness 
to  grapple  with  weighty  subjects,  not  a  little  charac- 
teristic. Here  are  the  firstlings  of  Hugo's  theatrical 
genius,  and  we  can  see  here  in  embryo  some  of  his 
later  qualities.  The  scene  is  laid  in  Spain,  where  the 


Victor  Hugo.  19 

poet  had  passed  part  of  his  wandering  childhood ;  and 
there  is  a  lavish  use  of  local  color.  That  the  young 
poet  had  already  broken  with  the  unity  of  place  is 
shown  by  the  frequent  change  of  scene.  There  is  the 
commingling  of  the  comic  and  the  serious,  which,  nine 
years  later,  in  the  '  Cromwell '  preface,  he  declared  to 
be  essential  to  a  proper  dramatic  presentation  of  life. 
The  humor  is  not  grim  and  grotesque,  as  it  became 
in  some  of  his  later  plays,  but  frankly  mirthful.  There 
is  the  use  of  the  prattle  of  little  children  to  relieve 
the  strain  of  tense  emotion,  —  an  effect  repeated  half  a 
century  later  in  '  Ninety-three.'  There  are  intriguing 
officials,  recalling  those  in  '  Ruy  Bias  ; '  and  there  is  a 
liberal  use  of  spies  and  poison,  recalling  'Lucrece 
Borgia '  and  '  Angelo.'  There  are  lyric  interludes  and 
antitheses,  and  violent  contrasts,  and  a  seeking  of  star- 
tling effects  by  the  sudden  diclosure  of  solemn  situa- 
tions. There  is  one  scene  in  the  tomb  of  the  king, 
which  perhaps  suggested  the  act  of  '  Hernani '  in  the 
tomb  of  Charlemagne ;  and  there  is  another  in  a  vast 
hall,  hung  with  black  draperies,  and  containing  a 
throne  and  a  scaffold,  around  which  are  grouped  guards 
in  black  and  red,  and  executioners  in  the  black  robes 
of  penitents,  with  torches  in  their  hands.  This  scene 
seemingly  has  served  as  raw  material  for  one  in  '  Marie 
Tudor,'  and  also,  it  may  be,  for  the  famous  supper- 
scene  in  '  Lucrece  Borgia.'  And,  last  of  all,  there  is  a 
ghost,  which,  I  am  glad  to  say,  Victor  Hugo  has  made 
no  attempt  to  utilize  in  any  of  his  later  works. 

After  Victor  Hugo  had  begun  to  be  recognized  as  the 
chief  of  a  new  sect,  his  liking  for  the  stage  prompted 
him  to  plan  a  play  which  should  exemplify  what  the 
drama  of  the  future  ought  to  be.  He  sketched  out 


2O  French  Dramatists. 

'Cromwell,'  intending  it  for  Ta'ma,  who  heartily  ap. 
proved  of  the  new  principles.  Unfortunately,  the  great 
actor  died,  worn  out  with  giving  form  to  the  emptiness 
of  the  plays  he  had  to  act.  Bereft  of  the  one  actor 
who  could  do  justice  to  his  hero,  Hugo  gave  up  the 
thought  of  the  stage,  and  elaborated  the  play,  until  it 
is  well-nigh  as  long  as  Mr.  Swinburne's  interminable 
'Bothwell.'  However,  the  original  acting-play  remains 
visible,  though  embedded  in  a  mass  of  superabundant 
matter.  Although  the  scenes  are  unduly  prolonged, 
and  the  characters  developed  at  needless  length,  care- 
ful cutting  would  make  its  performance  a  possibility. 
It  is  to  be  judged  frankly  as  a  play  for  the  stage,  and 
not  as  that  half-breed  monstrosity,  a  "play  for  the 
closet."  Of  course,  it  marks  an  immense  advance  on 
the  '  Inez  de  Castro '  of  nine  years  before ;  but  it  is 
far  inferior  to  the  '  Hernani '  of  three  years  later.  The 
restrictions  of  actual  stage  representation  are  whole- 
some to  Hugo's  exuberant  genius. 

As  a  historical  drama,  '  Cromwell '  is  not  quite  so 
accurate  as  its  author  pretends  ;  but  it  presents  vividly 
the  superficial  aspects  of  a  man  and  a  time  still  waiting 
for  a  dramatist  who  can  see  their  great  capabilities. 
The  plot,  the  incidents  of  which  are  not  as  closely  ser- 
ried as  in  Hugo's  later  plays,  turns  on  the  Protector's 
intrigues  for  the  crown  he  afterward  refused.  There  is 
the  familiar  use  of  moments  of  surprise  and  suspense, 
and  of  stage-effects  appealing  to  the  eye  and  the  ear. 
In  the  first  act  Richard  Cromwell  drops  into  the  midst 
of  the  conspirators  against  his  father, — surprise:  he 
accuses  them  of  treachery  in  drinking  without  him, 
—  suspense;  suddenly  a  trumpet  sounds,  and  a  crier 
orders  open  the  doors  of  the  tavern  where  all  are  sit- 


Victor  Hugo.  2 1 

ting,  —  suspense  again  ;  when  the  doors  are  flung  wide, 
we  see  the  populace  and  a  company  of  soldiers,  and  the 
crier  on  horseback,  who  reads  a  proclamation  of  a  gen- 
eral fast,  and  commands  the  closing  of  all  taverns,  — 
surprise  again.  A  somewhat  similar  scene  of  succeed- 
ing suspense  and  surprise  is  to  be  found  in  the  fourth 
act.  The  setting  off  of  the  Roundheads  against  the 
Cavaliers  is  rather  French  in  its  conception  of  char- 
acter, but  none  the  less  effective.  There  is  real  humor 
in  the  contrast  of  Carr,  the  typical  Puritan,  with  Lord 
Rochester,  the  ideal  courtier ;  and  the  improbable,  not 
to  say  impossible,  disguise  of  Rochester  as  Cromwell's 
chaplain  is  fertile  in  scenes  of  pure  comedy.  The  fun, 
light  and  airy  and  graceful  in  Rochester,  gets  a  little 
forced  and  farcical  in  Dame  Guggligoy  :  the  effort  is 
obvious,  and  the  hand  rather  heavy. 

The  opening  line  of '  Cromwell '  was  a  protest  against 
the  stiff,  stilted,  and  unnatural  decorum  which  forbade 
the  use  of  the  simple  word  for  a  simple  thing,  prescrib- 
ing in  its  place  a  sort  of  roundabout  hinting  at  it :  this 
is  the  first  line  of  Hugo's  first  published  play,  — a  date 
only. 

"  Demain,  vingt-cinq  juin,  mil  six  cent  cinquante-sept." 
To  see  the  curtain  rise  on  a  tavern,  and  to  hear  a  date 
as  the  first  phrase  of  a  five-act  historical  drama  in  verse, 
was  enough  to  shock  even  the  most  liberal  Classicist. 
The  second  act  began,  in  like  manner,  with  a  question 
as  to  the  time  of  day,  and  the  simple  answer,  "  Noon." 
In  the  preface  to  the  play,  —  a  preface  which  was  as  a 
declaration  of  independence,  —  the  attempt  to  get  away 
from  effete  conventionalities  was  set  up  as  a  principle. 
In  this  iconoclasm,  Hugo  broke  the  shackles  of  the 
tragic  stage  He  disavowed  the  unities  of  time  and 


22  French  Dramatists. 

p  ace ;  he  proclaimed  the  supreme  importance  on  the 
stage  of  action;  he  demanded  a  return  to  nature  in 
poetic  diction ;  and  he  rejected  the  rigid  couplets  of 
contemporary  poets,  to  plead,  not  for  prose,  but  for  a 
freer  use  of  verse ;  for,  as  he  says,  "  an  idea  steeped  in 
verse  becomes  at  once  more  cutting  and  more  glittering : 
it  is  iron  turned  to  steel."  A  poet  who  can  handle  such 
verse  need  not  fear  the  simplest  and  humblest  phrases, 
for  to  him  nothing  would  be  trivial.  "  Genius  is  like 
the  stamp,  which  prints  the  royal  image  on  the  coins 
of  copper  as  well  as  on  coins  of  gold."  Above  all,  the 
poet  must  not  be  afraid  to  mingle  the  grotesque  with 
the  terrible  :  he  must,  indeed,  choose  rather  the  charac- 
teristic than  the  abstractly  beautiful.  In  this  principle, 
especially  the  juxtaposition  of  tragedy  and  comedy 
(which  he  supported  in  this  preface  by  citation  of  the 
Greeks,  Dante,  Shakspere,  Moliere,  and  Goethe),  we 
may  see  the  mainspring  of  his  next  plays. 

As  Dryden  has  told  us,  "  They  who  would  combat 
general  authority  with  particular  opinion  must  first  es- 
tablish themselves  a  reputation  of  understanding  better 
than  other  men."  Now  '  Cromwell '  was  unactable. 
Its  preface  irritated  many,  but  converted  few.  It  re- 
mained for  Hugo  to  prove  his  superior  understanding 
of  the  stage  by  his  own  works  acted  on  the  stage.  In 
the  spring  of  1829,  eighteen  months  after  the  publica- 
tion of  '  Cromwell,'  Hugo  was  asked  to  write  a  play  for 
the  Come'die-Franc.aise.  He  had  two  subjects  in  his 
head.  He  chose  to  write  first  'Marion  Delorme,'  —  a 
task  which  took  him  from  June  i  to  June  24,  the  fourth 
act  having  been  finished  in  one  day's  steady  labor. 
Accepted  by  the  theatre,  the  play  was  interdicted  by 
the  censors.  Hugo  at  once  turned  to  his  second  sub- 


Victor  Hugo.  23 

ject,  and  in  three  weeks  he  had  completed  '  Hernani.' 
It  is  a  coincidence  that'  Voltaire  wrote  '  Zaire,'  much 
his  best  tragedy,  in  just  the  same  space  of  time  that 
Hugo  took  to  write  '  Hernani,'  his  most  popular  play. 
In  explanation  of  this  wondrous  improvisation, — for 
'Hernani'  is  a  play  in  five  acts  of  full  length,  —  one 
may  venture  to  suggest  that  the  plot  had  been  slowly 
matured  in  the  author's  head,  the  situations  had  linked 
themselves  together  in  order,  and  that,  when  the  poet 
sat  him  down  to  his  desk,  he  had  but  to  clothe  his  con- 
ceptions with  verse.  To  him  this  was  a  task  of  no  diffi- 
culty, for  Hugo  has  superabundantly  the  gift  of  metrical 
speech  :  his  vocabulary  is  surpassingly  rich,  and  he  has 
lyric  melody  at  his  beck  and  call.  And  of  a  truth  his 
Muse  responded  nobly  to  the  appeal.  In  no  other  play 
of  Hugo's  is  the  verse  finer  or  firmer.  The  lumbering 
and  jingling  rhymed  Alexandrine  is  not  the  best  metre 
for  dramatic  poetry ;  it  is  not  even  a  good  metre ;  but 
it  is  here  handled  by  a  master  of  verse.  Though  no 
carelessness  betrays  the  improvising,  the  verse  retains 
the  rush  and  impetus  of  its  making.  The  whole  work 
is  full  of  the  freshness  and  vigor  of  youth.  One  can 
almost  hear  the  rising  sap,  and  see  the  spreading  foliage 
of  spring. 

Although  the  French  cannot  be  accused  of  taking 
their  pleasure  sadly,  the  first  performance  of  an  impor- 
tant play  at  the  national  theatre  is  a  solemnity.  The 
production  of  'Hernani'  at  the  Theatre  Fran^ais  on 
the  evening  of  Feb.  25,  1830,  was  a  national  event. 
It  was  the  first  pitched  battle  between  the  Classicists 
and  the  Romanticists.  The  pit  was  filled  with  bands 
of  young  artists  of  all  kinds,  who  had  volunteered  in 
place  of  the  salaried  applauders  of  the  theatre,  and  who 


24  French  Dramatists. 

were  admitted  on  the  presentation  of  a  special  ticket,  — 
the  word  hierro  (Spanish  for  iron)  stamped  in  a  bold 
handwriting  on  a  little  slip  of  red  paper.  Chief  among 
these  young  enthusiasts  was  Th^ophile  Gautier,  resplen- 
dent in  a  flaming  crimson  waistcoat.  With  the  first 
line  the  conflict  broke  out.  The  hisses  of  the  old 
school  were  met  by  the  plaudits  of  the  new.  Phrases 
which  now  pass  without  notice  were  then  jeered  and 
hooted.  Extra-hazardous  expressions  were  cheered 
before  they  were  fairly  out  of  the  actors'  mouths. 
When  the  curtain  fell,  the  victory  lay  with  the  young 
author.  But  the  end  was  not  yet.  The  fight  was 
renewed  with  the  same  bitterness  at  every  performance ; 
speeches  roughly  received  one  night  were  rapturously 
applauded  the  next ;  a  scene  lost  by  the  Romanticists 
to-day  was  taken  by  assault  to-morrow;  until  at  last 
there  was  not  one  single  line  in  the  whole  five  acts 
which,  at  one  time  or  another,  had  not  been  hissed. 
The  theatre  was  crowded  night  after  night.  The  excite- 
ment was  not  confined  to  the  capital,  and  provincial 
towns  echoed  the  animated  discussions  of  Paris.  At 
Toulouse  a  quarrel  about  'Hernani'  led  to  a  duel,  in 
which  a  young  man  was  killed. 

It  was  the  position  of  the  play  as  a  manifesto,  and 
not  its  merits,  remarkable  as  they  were,  which  called 
forth  such  demonstrations.  Yet  it  needs  no  wide  ac- 
quaintance with  the  works  then  holding  the  stage  in 
France  to  understand  that  a  play  as  fresh  and  as  full  of 
force  as  '  Hernani '  must  needs  make  a  strong  impres- 
sion. The  rapid  rush  of  its  action  carries  the  specta- 
tor off  his  feet ;  the  lyric  fervor  of  its  language  is 
intoxicating;  and  it  is  only  a  sober  second-thought 
which  lets  us  see  the  weak  points  of  the  piece.  If 


Victor  Hugo.  25 

this  is  its  effect  i.ow,  when  the  play  has  no  longer  the 
charm  of  novelty,  when,  indeed,  its  startling  innovations 
have  been  worn  threadbare  in  the  service  of  second- 
rate  and  often  clumsy  followers,  we  may  guess  what 
its  effect  was  then  on  the  ardent  generation  of  1830, 
surfeited  with  the  sickly  inanities  of  the  self-styled 
classic  school.  Whatever  we  may  now  think  of  Dona 
Sol  and  her  three  lovers,  the  young  artists  of  half  a 
century  ago  took  them  for  types  of  a  dramatic  renas- 
cence, —  a  new  birth  of  the  stage.  What  we  do  now 
think  of  them  is,  that  all  four  characters — although  full 
of  movement,  and  rich  in  color  —  are  hollow,  and  with- 
out real  life.  They  live,  move,  and  have  their  being, 
in  a  world  that  never  was :  in  brief,  they  are  operatic 
impossibilities,  ruled  by  an  inexorable  fate  and  the  firm 
hand  of  the  author,  who  has  decided  on  ending  a  pic- 
turesque play  with  a  pathetic  situation. 

The  plot  may  be  recalled  briefly.  Ruy  Gomez  in- 
tends to  marry  his  niece,  Dona  Sol,  who,  however,  loves 
a  mysterious  bandit,  Hernani,  —  own  brother  to  my 
lord  Byron's  '  Giaour.'  The  King  of  Spain  also  loves 
Dona  Sol,  and  bears  her  away  with  him.  Hernani  owes 
his  life  to  Ruy  Gomez,  to  whom  he  gives  his  hunting- 
horn,  agreeing  to  take  that  life  himself  whenever  he 
hears  the  horn  ;  and  then  Ruy  Gomez  and  Hernani, 
for  revenge,  join  in  a  conspiracy  against  the  king. 
But  Don  Carlos,  the  King  of  Spain,  is  elected  Roman 
Emperor,  and  he  surprises  the  conspirators.  Changed 
by  his  higher  office,  he  pardons.  Hernani  is  restored 
to  all  his  rank  and  titles,  and  Dona  Sol  is  wedded  to 
him.  In  the  midst  of  the  marriage-feast  comes  the 
sound  of  the  horn.  Ruy  Gomez  is  implacable :  Her- 
nani has  sworn  to  die ;  and  his  poison  serves  also  for 


26  French  Dramatists. 

his  bride.  '  Castilian  Honor,'  the  sub-title  of  the  playt 
seems  a  very  queer  thing  when  we  consider  this  story 
in  cold  blood.  For  the  plot  not  to  look  ludicrous,  one 
must  be  almost  as  hasty  and  hot-headed  as  the  hero 
himself.  And  the  incidents  are  as  like  each  other  as 
the  whole  play  is  unlike  life.  As  Mr.  W.  H.  Pollock 
has  aptly  remarked,  every  act  ends  with  somebody  spar- 
ing the  life  of  somebody  else,  save  the  last,  in  which 
all  the  chief  characters,  except  Charles  V.,  die  together. 
The  catastrophe,  although  it  is  the  logical  sum  total 
of  the  situations,  would  be  revolting,  if  it  were  not  so 
extravagant.  The  lugubrious  tooting  of  the  horn  it 
was,  doubtless,  that  Goethe  had  in  mind  when  he  called 
'  Hernani '  "  an  absurd  composition." 

But  to  detect  these  demerits  takes  afterthought. 
While  the  play  is  acting  before  us,  we  are  under  the 
spell :  we  are  moved,  thrilled,  excited.  The  pleasure 
it  gives  is  not  of  the  highest  kind  intellectually,  if, 
indeed,  it  may  be  termed  intellectual  at  all ;  but  as  to 
the  amount  of  pleasure  it  gives,  there  can  be  no  ques- 
tion. The  quality  of  its  power  may  be  doubted,  never 
the  quantity.  It  is  a  very  interesting  play,  —  melodra- 
matic in  its  motive,  poetic  in  its  language,  and  pictur- 
esque at  all  times. 

The  same  phrase  describes  fairly  enough  'Marion 
Delorme '  and  '  Le  Roi  s'amuse,'  which  followed  '  Her- 
nani '  upon  the  stage.  '  Marion  Delorme,'  forbidden 
by  the  Bourbon  censors,  waited  a  few  months,  till  the 
revolution  of  1830  overturned  the  Bourbon  throne; 
and  then,  in  a  few  months  more,  on  Aug.  n,  1831, 
it  was  brought  out  at  the  Porte  St.  Martin  Theatre. 
It  was  received  with  the  same  outburst  of  contend- 
ing prejudices  and  preferences  which  had  been  let 


Victor  Hugo.  27 

loose  upon  '  Hernani.'  To  my  mind  it  is  a  better  play 
than  its  predecessor  on  the  boards.  To  the  full  as 
moving  and  as  picturesque,  it  bears  study  better.  For 
one  thing,  it  mingles  humor  and  passion  far  more  skil- 
fully. It  may  perhaps  be  called  the  only  one  of  Hugo's 
plays  which  fulfils  the  conditions  of  the  new  drama  as 
laid  down  by  the  author  in  the  preface  to  '  Cromwell.' 
And  from  this  freer  use  of  humor  results  a  great  supe- 
riority in  the  presentation  of  character.  In  no  other 
play  of  Hugo's  are  the  characters  as  natural  as  in 
'Marion  Delorme.'  They  are  not  mere  profile  masks 
set  in  motion  to  face  each  other  in  a  given  situation. 
Louis  XIII.  and  Saverny  are  real  flesh  and  blood.  The 
king  indeed  is  a  royally  well  conceived  character ;  Hugo 
brings  before  us  by  a  few  light  and  humorous  touches 
the  feeble,  melancholy,  pious,  moral,  fearful,  restive, 
and  helpless  monarch,  chafing  under  the  iron  curb  of 
his  red  ruler,  and  yet  inert  in  self-assertion.  True  to 
history  or  not,  the  portrait  is  true  to  itself,  which  is 
of  greater  importance  in  dramatic  as  in  other  art.  The 
scene  between  Louis  and  his  solemn  jester,  who  seeks 
to  gain  his  end  by  playing  on  the  king's  failings,  is  in 
the  true  comedy  vein,  and  would  greatly  surprise  those, 
who,  familiar  only  with  Hugo's  later  works,  pretend 
that  he  does  not  know  what  humor  is. 

Saverny  is  a  figure  filled  in  with  a  few  easy  strokes 
of  an  airy  fancy :  he  is  the  embodiment  of  light-hearted 
grace  and  true-hearted  honor.  He  is  a  young  fellow 
who  wears  feathers  in  his  cap,  it  is  true :  but  he  bears 
down  in  his  heart  the  motto  of  his  order,  "Noblesse 
oblige;"  and  he  acts  up  to  it  when  time  serves.  His 
is  a  poetic  portrait  of  a  characteristic  Frenchman,  with 
the  national  quality  of  style,  and  a  capability  for  lofty 


28  French  Dramatists. 

sacrifice.  There  is  true  comedy,  again,  in  his  attitude, 
when  his  friend,  the  Marquis  de  Brichanteau,  tries  to 
console  Saverny's  uncle  for  his  supposed  death,  by 
pointing  out  his  faults,  and  dwelling  on  them  at  length, 
until  at  last  Saverny  revolts.  There  is,  perhaps,  a 
slightly  too  epigrammatic  emphasis  in  the  final  self- 
possession  of  Saverny,  which  lets  him  coolly  point  out 
three  mistakes  in  the  spelling  of  his  own  death-war- 
rant. Emphasis  and  epigram,  however,  are  kept  more 
subordinate  in  '  Marion  Delorme '  than  in  any  other  of 
Hugo's  plays.  Marion  Delorme  the  heroine,  and  Didier 
the  hero,  are  simpler  figures,  and  more  like  those  to 
be  found  in  the  '  Hernani.'  Didier  is  another  brother 
of  the  Giaour,  —  mysterious,  melancholic,  misanthropic. 
Like  Hernani,  he  is  a  wanderer  on  the  face  of  the 
earth,  and  has  great  capacity  for  suffering.  Marion 
Delorme  is  a  poetic  portrait,  no  doubt  highly  flattered, 
of  the  fair  and  fragile  beauty  who  has  come  down  to  us 
from  history,  leaving  her  character  behind  her. 

Although,  as  in  all  of  Hugo's  plays,  the  plot  is  of 
prime  importance,  I  have  said  nothing  of  it  here, 
because  it  is  both  hard  and  unfair  to  give  in  a  scant 
sentence  or  two  a  sample  of  the  situation  for  which 
the  playwright  has  cunningly  prepared  by  all  that  pre- 
cedes it.  In  the  skill  with  which  the  plot  is  conducted, 
in  the  force  and  effect  of  its  situations,  'Marion  De- 
lorme '  does  not  yield  to  its  fellows.  In  no  other  play 
of  Hugo's  is  there  any  thing  to  compare  with  the  skill 
with  which  the  action  of  the  drama  is  dominated  by 
the  red  figure,  and  stiffened  by  the  steel  will  of  the 
unseen  cardinal,  the  Richelieu,  who,  before  Prince  Bis- 
marck, proved  his  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  blood  and 
iron. 


Victor  Hugo.  29 

It  was  possibly  to  '  Hamlet '  that  Hugo  owed  the  troop 
of  strolling  players  among  whom  Marion  Delorme  hides  ; 
and  he  may  have  been  indebted  for  the  self-sale  by 
which  she  tries  to  procure  Didier's  escape  either  to 
the  fiction  of  '  Faublas, '  or  to  the  fact  in  the  rela- 
tions of  Josephine  Barras  and  Napoleon ;  just  as  it 
may  have  been  a  recollection  of  an  incident  in  the 
'  School  for  Scandal '  which  suggested  the  far  more 
dramatic  picture-scene  of  '  Hernani.'  To  conclude  this 
list  of  hypothetic  borrowings,  there  are  in  '  Cromwell ' 
four  clowns  almost  too  Shaksperian  in  the  most  objec- 
tionable sense  of  that  much-abused  word.  When  he 
began  to  write  for  the  stage,  Hugo  seemed  to  be 
greatly  taken  with  the  king's  jester, — a  figure  at  once 
mediaeval  and  grotesque,  and  therefore  doubly  capti- 
vating. After  the  four  in  '  Cromwell,' — let  us  imagine, 
if  haply  we  can,  the  Protector  with  four  fools,  —  we 
have  the  doleful  and  black-robed  jester  in  'Marion 
Delorme.' 

In  the  next  piece,  the  '  Roi  s'amuse,'  the  protagonist 
is  the  court-fool,  Triboulet,  the  jester  of  Francis  I.  of 
France.  This  play  was  brought  out  at  the  Theatre 
Frangais,  in  Paris,  one  evening  in  November,  1832. 
Before  the  first  night  audience  it  failed,  and  it  had  no 
chance  of  recovery,  for  the  next  morning  the  govern- 
ment forbade  the  performance  of  the  play  on  the  ground 
that  it  libelled  Francis  I.  So  the  'Roi  s'amuse'  has 
had  but  one  performance ;  and  yet  the  plot  of  no  play 
of  Hugo's  is  so  well  known  out  of  France,  for  it  served 
Verdi  as  the  libretto  of  '  Rigoletto.'  Space  fails  to 
consider  it  here  in  detail.  In  form  and  spirit  it  does 
not  differ  from  '  Hernani '  or  '  Marion  Delorme,'  al- 
though it  rises  to  a  higher  reach  of  passion  than  they 


30  French  Dramatists. 

If  any  one  wishes  to  see  how  a  strong  story  can  be 
watered  into  symmetrical  sentimentality,  he  may  read 
the  'Roi  s'amuse,'  and  then  take  up  the  'Fool's 
Revenge,'  a  drama  in  three  acts,  by  Mr.  Tom  Taylor. 
The  essential  tragedy  of  the  motive  is  weakened  to  a 
triumph  of  virtue,  and  conversion  of  the  vice.  The 
desperation  and  death,  which  are  the  vitals  of  the 
French  play,  are  in  the  English  anodyned  for  the  sake 
of  the  conventional  happy  ending. 

Now  we  come  to  a  curious  change  of  manner.  The 
'  Roi  s'amuse,'  '  Marion  Delorme,'  and  '  Hernani '  are  all 
written  in  a  rich  and  ample  verse,  full  of  fire  and  color : 
the  three  plays  which  followed  —  'Lucrece  Borgia,' 
'Marie  Tudor,'  and  'Angelo'  —  are  in  prose;  and  the 
effect  of  the  change  of  medium  is  most  surprising.  Of 
course  verse  is  not  always  poetry,  and  prose  may  aim 
as  high  and  be  as  lofty  as  verse ;  but  in  Hugo's  case 
the  giving-up  of  verse  seems  like  a  giving-up  of  poetry. 
The  elevation,  the  glow,  and  the  grace  of,  say,  'Her- 
nani,' are  all  lacking  in  'Lucrece  Borgia'  and  its  two 
companions  in  prose.  There  is  no  falling-off  in  the 
ingenuity  of  invention,  or  in  the  constructive  skill  of 
the  author ;  but  the  plays  in  prose  seem  somehow  on  a 
much  lower  level  than  those  in  verse ;  and  this  is  in 
spite  of  Hugo's  use  of  a  metre  hopelessly  unfit  for  the 
quick  work  of  the  stage.  Before  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold, 
Stendhal '  had  dwelt  on  the  insufficience  of  the  Alex- 
andrine for  high  poetry.  The  jigginess  of  the  metre 
and  the  alternating  pairs  of  male  and  female  rhymes 
are  fatal  to  continued  elevation  of  thought.  Shak- 

1  "  Les  vers  italiens  et  anglais  permettent  de  tout  dire ;  le  vers  Alexandria 
seul,  fait  pour  une  cour  d6daigneuse,  en  a  tous  les  ridicules."  —  '  Racine  et  Shalt- 
spere,1  p.  36,  note. 


Victor  Hugo.  3 1 

speare  and  Dante  could  not  have  been  sublime  in 
Alexandrines.  Yet  the  metre  has  a  certain  fitness 
to  the  French  intellect,  to  the  French  love  of  order 
and  balance ;  and,  moreover,  it  is  the  recognized  and 
regular  metre  of  the  higher  theatre  :  so  a  French 
dramatist  must  needs  make  the  best  of  it.  Victor 
Hugo  is  a  master  in  versification ;  it  has  no  mysteries 
for  him :  and  in  his  hands,  even  the  stubborn  Alexan- 
drine is  bent  to  his  bidding.  Archbishop  Trench  calls 
Calderon  "  nearly  as  lyric  as  dramatic."  Victor  Hugo 
is  even  more  lyric  than  dramatic.  The  most  poetic  lines 
in  his  plays  have  a  lyric  lilt  and  swing.  A  friend  of 
mine  who  has  a  most  acute  insight  into  rhythmic 
intricacies  has  suggested  to  me  a  subtle  likeness 
between  the  verse  of  'Hernani,'  particularly,  and  of 
the  '  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome  ; '  and  just  as  the  quotation 
of  a  single  stanza  would  do  injustice  to  Macaulay, 
whose  merit  lies  mainly  in  the  movement  of  his  verse, 
so  it  is  almost  impossible  to  pick  out  for  quotation  any 
passage  of  the  far  finer  and  higher  verse  of  Hugo 
which  will  be  fairly  representative.  A  pretty  couplet 
is  that  of  the  king,  Don  Carlos,  in  '  Hernani,'  when 
he,  having  been  elected  emperor,  pardons  his  rival, 
gives  him  Dona  Sol  to  wife,  and  finally  bestows  the 
accolade :  — 

.  .  .  "je  te  fais  chevalier. 

Mais  tu  1'as,  le  plus  doux  et  le  plus  beau  collier, 
Celui  que  je  n'ai  pas,  qui  manque  au  rang  supreme, 
Les  deux  bras  d'une  femme  aimde  et  qui  vous  aime ! 
Ah,  tu  vas  etre  heureux;  —  moi,  je  suis  empereur." 

('  Hernani,'  act  iv.  sc.  4.) 

And  lovely  are  the  last  lines  of  the  same  play,  after 
Hernani   and  Dofia  Sol  have  taken  the  fatal  poison, 


32  French  Dramatists. 

Hernani  falls  back ;  and  Don  Ruy  Gomez,  lifting  his 
head,  declares  him  dead ;  but  Dona  Sol  will  not  have 

it  so :  — 

..."  Mort !  non  pas  !  .  .  .  nous  dormons. 
II  dort !  c'est  mon  e*poux,  vois-tu,  nous  nous  aimons, 
Nous  sommes  couches  Ik.     C'est  notre  nuit  de  noce. 
Ne  le  re*veillez  pas,  seigneur  due  de  Mendoce  .  .  . 
II  est  las.  .  .  .  Mon  amour,  tiens-toi  vers  moi  tourne*, 
Plus  pres  .  .  .  plus  pres  encore  .  .  ." 

('  Hernani,'  act  v.  sc.  6.) 

And  then  she,  too,  falls  back  dead.  Fine  lines  again 
are  those  of  Didier  at  the  end  of  '  Marion  Delorme,' 
when  the  bell  tolls  the  hour  of  his  execution,  and  he 
turns  to  the  by-standers  :  — 

"  Vous  qui  venez  ici  pour  nous  voir  au  passage. 
Si  1'on  parle  de  nous,  rendez-nous  tdmoignage 
Que  tous  deux  sans  palir  nous  avons  e'coute' 
Cette  heure  qui  pour  nous  sonnait  I'e'ternite* ! " 

('  Marion  Delorme,'  act  v.  sc.  7.) 

Perhaps  as  beautiful  a  monologue  as  any  in  the  lan- 
guage is  the  touching  speech  of  the  jester,  Triboulet, 
over  the  body  of  the  daughter  he  has  killed,  thinking 

to  slay  the  king :  — 

...  "  Je  croi 

Qu'elle  respire  encore !  elle  a  besoin  de  moi ! 
Allez  vite  chercher  du  secours  a  la  ville. 
Laissez-la  dans  mes  bras,  je  serai  bien  tranquille. 
Non  !  elle  n'est  pas  morte !  oh  !  Dieu  ne  voudrait  pas. 
Car  enfin  il  le  sait,  je  n'ai  qu'elle  ici-bas. 
Tout  le  monde  vous  hait  quand  vous  etes  difforme, 
Ou  vous  fuit,  de  vos  maux  personne  ne  s'informe ; 
Elle  m'aime,  elle  !  —  elle  est  ma  joie  et  mon  appui. 
Quand  on  rit  de  son  pere,  elle  pleure  avec  lui. 
Si  belle  et  morte  !  oh,  non  !  —  Donnez-moi  quelque  chose 
Pour  essuyer  son  front.  —  Sa  l£vre  est  encor  rose. 


Victor  Hugo.  33 

Oh  \  si  vous  1'aviez  vue,  oh !  je  la  vois  encor 
Quand  elle  avait  deux  ans  avec  ses  cheveux  d'or ! 
Elle  £tait  blonde  alors  !  —  O  ma  pauvre  opprime'e  ! 
Ma  Blanche  !  mon  bonheur !  ma  fille  bien-aime'e ! — 
Lorsqu'elle  etait  enfant,  je  la  tenais  ainsi. 
Elle  dormait  sur  moi,  tout  comme  la  void ! 
Quand  elle  reVeillait,  si  vous  saviez  quel  ange  ! 
Je  ne  lui  semblais  pas  quelque  chose  d'e*trange, 
Elle  me  souriait  avec  ses  yeux  divins, 
Et  moi  je  lui  baisais  ses  deux  petites  mains  ! 
Pauvre  agneau !  —  Morte  !  oh  non  !  elle  dort  et  repose. 
Tout  a  1'heure,  messieurs,  c'etait  bien  autre  chose, 
Elle  s'est  cependant  re'veille'e.  —  Oh  !  j'attend. 
Vous  1'allez  voir  rouvrir  ses  yeux  dans  un  instant! 
Vous  voyez  maintenant,  messieurs,  que  je  raisonne, 
Je  suis  tranquille  et  doux,  je  n'offense  personne ; 
Puisque  je  ne  fais  rien  de  ce  qu'on  me  de'fend, 
On  peut  bien  me  laisser  regarder  mon  enfant. 
J'ai  deja  re"chauffe*  ses  mains  entre  les  miennes ; 
Voyez.  touchez  les  done  un  peu !  .  .  . 

UNE  FEMME. 

Le  chirurgien. 

TRIBOULET. 

Tenez,  regardez-la,  je  n'empecherai  rien. 
Elle  est  eVanouie,  est-ce  pas  ? 

LE  CHIRURGIEN. 

Elle  est  morte."  » 

('  Le  Roi  s'amuse,'  act  v.  sc.  5.) 

When  Hugo  drops  verse,  he  gives  up  a  great  advan- 
tage. His  plays  in  verse  may  pass  for  poetic  dramas  ; 
but  his  plays  in  prose  are  of  a  truth  prosaic.  A  garment 
of  verse  veils  '  Hernani '  and  '  Marion  Delorme ; '  but 

1  A  metrical  translation  of  this  passage  into  English  will  be  found  in  the  nota 
to  this  chapter. 


34  French  Dramatists. 

'  Lucrtce  Borgia '  and  '  Marie  Tudor '  are  naked  melo- 
drama, without  any  semblance  of  poetry.  '  Lucrece 
Borgia,'  written  in  the  summer  of  1832,  immediately 
after  the  'Roi  s'amuse,'  and  acted  in  1833,  is  strangely 
like  '  Inez  de  Castro,'  its  predecessor  in  prose.  It  is 
simply  a  melodrama,  owing  its  merit  mainly  to  its  sim- 
plicity. We  have  an  adroit  and  cunning  handling  of  a 
single  fertile  theme.  There  is  none  of  the  involute 
turgidity  of  the  ordinary  melodramatic  playwright ;  but 
for  all  its  simplicity  the  play  is  a  melodrama,  even  in 
the  etymological  sense,  which  requires  the  admixture 
of  music.  With  all  her  accumulated  vices,  Lucrece 
Borgia  herself  has  no  grandeur,  no  touch  of  the  wand 
which  transfigures  the  wicked  woman  of  Webster  or 
Ford.  It  is  not  imaginative,  it  is  not  poetic,  and  it  is 
immensely  clever.  In  spite  of  the  magnitude  of  her 
crimes,  and  the  force  with  which  she  is  depicted,  she 
remains  commonplace.  She  arouses  the  latent  instinct 
of  caricature.  When,  in  the  first  act,  she  tries  special 
pleading  for  herself,  and  lays  the  blame  and  the  burden 
of  her  sins  on  her  family,  —  "  It  is  the  example  of  my 
family  which  has  misled  me,"  —  one  involuntarily  recalls 
the  fair  Greek  heroine  of  the  '  Belle  H^lene,'  who  com- 
plains of  "  the  fatality  which  weighs  upon  me !" 

Coincident  with  the  change  from  verse  to  prose  is  a 
sudden  falling-off  in  the  humor  which  lightened  the 
sombre  situations  of  the  metrical  plays.  The  romantic 
formula  which  prescribed  the  mingling  of  comedy  and 
tragedy  to  make  the  model  drama  is  disregarded  already 
in  '  Lucrece  Borgia ; '  in  Gubetta  the  humor  we  found 
frank  and  free  in  the  Saverny  of  '  Marion  Delorme ' 
is  getting  grim  and  saturnine.  It  is  less  frequent  and 
more  forced,  as  though  the  author  was  beginning  to 


Victor  Hugo.  35 

make  fun  with  difficulty.  In  'Marie  Tudor,'  written 
and  actec.  in  the  same  year  (1833),  the  humor  has 
wholly  disappeared,  and  we  may  therefore  detect  a 
growing  extravagance  of  speech  and  structure.  The 
'  Marie  Tudor '  of  M.  Hugo  is  the  '  Queen  Mary '  of  Mr. 
Tennyson  ;  and  the  poets  themselves  are  scarcely  more 
unlike  than  the  pictures  they  present  us  of  the  miserable 
monarch  who  went  down  to  history  as  Bloody  Mary. 
Tennyson  could  probably  give  chapter  and  verse  for 
every  part  of  his  play.  Hugo  has  no  warrant  for  dozens 
of  his  extraordinary  assertions  and  assumptions  as  to 
the  manners  and  customs  of  the  English.  Tennyson 
is  patriotic,  and  always  seeks  the  subjects  of  his  plays 
in  the  national  history  which  he  has  reverently  studied. 
Hugo  has  laid  the  scene  in  France  of  only  two  of  his 
plays  :  he  prefers  foreign  countries,  which  offer  more 
frequent  opportunities  for  sharp  contrasts  and  strange 
mysteries.  Spain,  Italy,  England,  even  Germany,  can 
be  taken  by  storm  with  less  fear  of  the  consequences. 
But  in  'Marie  Tudor'  the  joke  is  really  carried  a  little 
too  far.  The  play  is  absurd  where  it  is  not  ridiculous. 
It  is  a  caricature  of  history,  a  wanton  misreading  of  rec- 
ords, and,  worse  yet,  a  passing-over  of  the  truly  dramatic 
side  of  the  reign,  to  invent  vulgar  impossibilities.  The 
play  is  in  every  way  inferior  to  its  predecessors.  It 
has  action,  and  it  is  shaped  solely  with  an  eye  to  effect 
before  the  footlights ;  but  even  as  a  specimen  of  jour- 
neyman play-making  it  is  cheap.  There  is  no  touch 
or  trace  of  poetry  anywhere.  The  unfortunate  queen 
is  transformed  into  a  sanguinary  and  lascivious  virago, 
a  Madame  Angot  of  a  monarch,  scolding  like  a  fishwife, 
and  threatening  like  a  fury. 

Tbs  third  play  in  prose,  '  Angelo,'  written  and  acted 


36  French  Dramatists. 

in  1835,  thcugh  inferior  to  'Lucrece  Borgia,'  is  superior 
to  '  Marie  Tudor,'  because  it  does  not  make  history  to 
suit  itself,  and  because  its  story  is  simpler  and  more 
pathetic.  The  contrast  of  the  chaste  patrician  lady 
with  Tisbe,  the  lawless  woman  of  the  people,  is  capable 
of  development  into  affecting  situations.  The  two  parts 
were  originally  acted  by  Mile.  Mars  and  Mme.  Dorval. 
Tisbe  was  afterward  acted  by  Rachel,  and  in  America 
an  adaptation  by  John  Brougham  was  played  by  Char- 
lotte Cushman.  Outside  of  these  two  parts  there  is 
little  in  the  piece.  Homodei  is  not  very  like  a  man  of 
God,  though  he  is  represented  as  the  personification 
of  ubiquitous  omniscience.  It  is  one  of  Hugo's  first 
attempts  at  embodying  an  abstraction,  or  rather  at 
clothing  a  really  commonplace  character  with  marvel- 
lous attributes.  He  looms  up  as  something  far  more 
wonderful  than  he  appears  when  seen  close  to.  There 
is  an  effort  to  pack  a  quart  into  a  pint,  to  the  resulting 
fracture  of  the  vessel.  'Angelo'  has  no  more  humor 
than  '  Marie  Tudor  : '  so  the  extravagance  has  a  chance 
to  grow.  There  is  a  perceptible  increase  in  the  affecta- 
tions of  plot  and  dialogue,  and  an  equally  perceptible 
increase  in  Hugo's  fondness  for  mystic  devices.  In  all 
his  plays  there  are  sliding  panels,  and  secret  passages, 
and  hidden  staircases  in  plenty ;  spies  and  hireling 
bravos  and  black  mutes  are  to  be  found  in  them  ;  subtle 
Italian  poisons,  and  sudden  antidotes  thereunto,  and 
strange  narcotics,  at  an  instant's  notice  are  ready  at 
hand  :  in  short,  there  is  no  lack  of  tools  for  the  most 
Radcliffean  mysteries  and  mystifications.  Of  poison 
especially,  is  there  no  miserly  use.  Hernani  poisons 
himself,  and  so  does  his  bride ;  Ruy  Bias  takes  poison ; 
Angelo  thinks  to  poison  his  wife;  and  Lucrece  Borgia 


Victor  Hugo.  37 

poisons  a  whole  supper-party.  In  fact,  to  read  Hugo's 
plays  straight  through  is  almost  as  good  as  a  course  in 
toxicology.  The  dagger  is  abused  as  freely  as  the  bowl. 
To  call  the  death-roll  of  all  the  dramatis  persona  who 
die  by  the  sword  or  the  axe  would  be  as  tedious  as  un- 
profitable. 

In  1838,  three  years  after  '  Angelo,'  came  'Ruy  Bias,' 
in  many  ways  Hugo's  finest  play.  It  is  a  happy  return 
to  verse  and  the  earlier  manner.  The  plot  —  suggested 
possibly  by  the  story  of  Angelica  Kaufmann,  and 
slightly  similar  to  Lord  Lytton's  'Lady  of  Lyons' — is  at 
once  simple  and  strong.  Verse  again  throws  its  ample 
folds  over  the  characters,  and  cloaks  their  lack  of  the 
complexity  of  life.  And  again  we  have  the  wholesome 
and  lightsome  humor  which  kept  the  metrical  dramas 
from  the  exaggerations  and  extravagances  of  the  prose 
plays.  It  is  as  though  the  exuberant  genius  of  Victor 
Hugo  needed  the  strait-jacket  of  the  couplet.  There  is 
true  comedy  ,in  the  conception  of  Don  Ce'sar  de  Bazan ; 
and  very  ingenious  and  comic  is  the  scene  in  the  fourth 
act,  when  he  drops  into  the  house  occupied  by  Ruy 
Bias  (who  has  assumed  the  name  of  Don  C^sar),  and  is 
astonished  at  the  adventures  which  befall  him,  and 
does  in  every  thing  the  exact  reverse  of  what  would 
be  done  by  Ruy  Bias,  for  whom  the  adventures  were 
intended.  It  is  only  in  this  scene,  and  in  one  or  two 
in  'Marion  Delorme,'  that  we  can  see  any  thing  in 
Hugo's  work  approaching  to  large  and  liberal  humor. 
Wit  he  has  in  abundance,  and  to  spare ;  grim  humor, 
ironic  playfulness,  grotesque  fancy,  are  not  wanting : 
but  real  corr.ic  force,  the  enjoyment  of  fun  for  its  own 
sake,  the  vis  comica  of  Moliere,  for  example,  or  of 
Shakspere,  or  Aristophanes,  is  nowhere  to  be  found. 


38  French  Dramatists. 

I  have  already  dwelt  on  the  utter  absence  of  any  kind 
of  comedy  from  the  prose  plays.  If  it  were  not  for 
'Ruy  Bias,'  which  seems  to  come  out  of  its  proper 
chronological  order,  since  it  is  closely  akin  to  its  fellow 
metrical  dramas,  and  not  to  the  prose  plays  which  pre- 
ceded it,  —  if  it  were  not  for  '  Ruy  Bias,'  we  might  trace 
the  gradual  decay  of  Hugo's  feeling  for  the  comic. 
After  'Ruy  Bias,'  after  1838,  neither  in  play  nor  in  any 
other  of  the  multifarious  efforts  of  Victor  Hugo,  can  I 
recall  any  attempt  at  comedy,  or  even  any  conscious- 
ness of  its  existence.  It  is  as  though,  born  with  a  full 
sense  of  humor,  in  the  course  of  time  he  had  allowed 
his  vanity  to  spring  up  and  choke  it ;  for,  oddly  enough, 
as  his  humor  died,  his  vanity  grew  apace.  It  is  an  ag- 
gressive vain-glory,  and  may  best  be  seen  in  his  prefaces. 
In  that  to  '  Cromwell '  he  is  defiant,  and  not  on  the  de- 
fensive ;  in  those  to  later  plays  we  can  see  the  undue 
humility  which  is  the  chief  sign  of  towering  vanity. 
Just  after  '  Hernani,'  Chateaubriand,  who  was  gifted 
with  no  slight  self-esteem,  hailed  Victor  Hugo  as  his 
fit  successor.  And  Hugo  has  inherited,  not  only  some 
of  the  literary  methods  and  some  of  the  authority  of 
Chateaubriand,  but  a  full  share  of  his  intellectual  arro- 
gance. 

It  was  this  intellectual  arrogance  which  prompted  him 
to  withdraw  from  the  stage  after  the  popular  failure  of  his 
next  play.  The  'Burgraves,'  written  in  October,  1842, 
and  acted  in  March,  1843,  is  an  attempt  to  set  on  the 
stage  something  of  the  epic  grandeur  of  mediaeval  his- 
tory. It  sought  to  make  dramatic  use  of  the  legend  of 
the  mighty  and  undying  Barbarossa.  As  a  poem,  it  is 
one  of  Hugo's  noblest ;  as  a  play,  it  is  his  poorest.  We 
have  a  powerful  picture  of  Teutonic  decadence  and  of 


Victor  Hugo.  39 

imperial  majesty ;  but  in  aiming  high  Hugo  naturally 
missed  the  heart  of  the  play-goer.  There  is  nothing 
human  for  the  play-goer  to  take  hold  of,  and  carry  away 
with  him.  The  plot,  with  but  little  of  the  melodramatic 
machinery  Hugo  directs  so  effectively,  is  uninteresting, 
and  in  its  termination  undramatic.  The  characters, 
grandly  conceived  as  they  are,  seem  like  colossal 
statues,  larger  than  life,  and  not  flesh  and  blood.  No 
real  passion  was  to  be  expected  from  such  stony  figures, 
perfect  as  may  be  their  cold  and  chiselled  workmanship. 
The  'Burgraves'  is  the  most  ambitious  of  Hugo's 
dramas,  and  the  least  successful  in  performance.  Its 
career  on  the  stage  was  short.  About  this  time,  too,  a 
re-action  had  set  in  against  the  Romanticists,  and  Pon- 
sard's  '  Lucrece  '  was  hailed  as  a  return  to  common 
sense.  Victor  Hugo  took  umbrage,  and  declared  that 
it  was  unbecoming  to  his  dignity  to  submit  himself  to 
the  hisses  of  a  chance  audience.  Although  he  had  two 
plays  nearly  ready  for  acting,  he  has  never  again  pre- 
sented himself  as  a  dramatist.  One  of  these  plays,  the 
'Jumeaux,'  was  about  finished  in  1838;  and  since  then 
he  has  written  'Torquemada,'  a  drama  of  the  Spanish 
Inquisition,  a  most  promising  subject  for  his  peculiar 
powers ;  neither  of  which  is  to  be  acted  until  after 
Hugo's  death.  A  recent  biographer  refers  to  still  other 
pieces  of  the  poet,  among  them  a  fairy-play  called  the 
'Foret  Mouillee,'  in  which  trees  and  flowers  speak. 

In  this  enumeration  of  Hugo's  plays  I  have  omitted 
only  one,  —  the  libretto  of  an  opera,  '  Esmeralda,'  pro- 
duced at  the  Opdra  of  Paris  in  November,  1836.  It 
was  a  lyric  dramatization  of  his  romance  'Notre  Dame 
de  Paris,'  made  for  Mile.  Bertin,  the  daughter  of  a 
friend,  after  he  had  refused  to  do  it  far  Meyerbeer. 


40  French  Dramatists. 

Dramatizations  of  the  same  story  and  of  the  '  Misera- 
bles '  have  been  acted ;  and  an  adaptation  of  '  Ninety- 
Three'  is  announced  for  the  winter  of  1881-1882. 
If  his  own  libretto  chanced  upon  an  incompetent  com- 
poser, certain  of  his  dramas  are  better  known  to  the 
world  at  large  as  opera-books  than  in  their  original 
and  more  literary  form  as  French  plays.  'Hernani' 
and  the  '  Roi  s'amuse '  served  Verdi  as  the  books  of 
'  Ernani '  and  '  Rigoletto.'  '  Ruy  Bias '  has  been  turned 
into  a  libretto  several  times.  Balfe's  'Armorer  of 
Nantes '  is  based  on  '  Marie  Tudor.'  Mercadante's 
'  Giuramento '  is  a  setting  of  'Angelo.'  'Lucrece  Bor- 
gia,' the  final  act  of  which  is  full  of  contending  emo- 
tions and  scenic  contrasts  culminating  in  the  thrilling 
commingling  of  the  bacchanalian  lyrics  of  the  supper- 
party  with  the  dirge  for  the  dying  chanted  by  the 
approaching  priests  —  a  situation  which  almost  sets 
itself  to  music  —  has  been  turned  to  excellent  account 
in  the  'Lucrezia  Borgia'  of  Donizetti.  These  trans- 
formations were  not  always  to  the  poet's  taste,  as  was 
shown  by  the  savage  way  in  which  he  warned  off  the 
librettist  in  a  note  to  one  of  his  later  plays. 

All  Victor  Hugo's  plays  are  the  work  of  his  youth 
(he  was  not  forty  when  the  '  Burgraves '  was  acted),  and 
they  are  thus  free  from  the  measureless  emphasis 
which  is  the  besetting  sin  of  his  later  work.  And 
unfortunately  Hugo  has  not  obeyed  Goethe's  behest, 
to  beware  of  taking  "  the  faults  of  our  youth  into  our 
old  age ;  for  old  age  brings  with  it  its  own  defects." 
This  is  just  what  Hugo  has  done.  No  author  of  his 
years  and  fame  has  ever  changed  so  little  since  he  first 
came  forward.  There  has  been  extension,  of  course ; 
but  there  has  not  been  growth.  So,  although  Hugo 


Victor  Hugo.  41 

stopped  short  his  dramatic  production,  we  may  doubt 
whether  the  future  would  have  had  any  surprise  in 
store  for  us.  We  may  fairly  enough  discount  what 
manner  of  play  he  would  have  given  us  had  he  written 
more  for  the  stage.  We  should  have  found  the  "  lively 
feeling  of  situation  and  the  power  to  express  them," 
which  Goethe  tells  us  "  make  the  poet ; "  but  now  and 
then  the  situation  would  have  been  overcharged,  and 
the  expression  extravagant.  We  should  have  had  plays 
in  the  highest  degree  ingenious  in  device,  thrilling  in 
incident,  and,  if  they  chanced  to  be  in  verse,  full  of 
lyric  melody.  But  these  are  not  the  chief  attributes 
of  a  great  dramatic  poet.  Indeed,  excess  of  ingenuity 
is  fatal  to  true  grandeur,  as  Hugo  himself  seems  to 
have  felt ;  for  in  his  one  attempt  at  a  lofty  theme,  the 
'  Burgraves,'  he  instinctively  cast  aside  cleverness,  and 
strove  for  a  noble  simplicity.  In  the  two  chief  qualities 
of  a  great  dramatic  poet,  —  in  the  power  of  creating 
character  true  to  nature,  and  in  unfailing  elevation  of 
thought,  —  in  both  of  these  Victor  Hugo  is  deficient. 

If  one  seek  proof  that  Hugo  is  not  a  great  dramatic 
poet  of  the  race  and  lineage  of  Shakspere,  but  rather 
a  supremely  clever  playwright,  an  artificer  of  dramas, 
not  because  the  drama  was  in  him  and  must  out,  but 
because  the  stage  offered  the  best  market  and  the 
most  laurels,  one  has  only  to  consider  '  Marie  Tudor,' 
or  '  Angelo.'  No  great  dramatic  poet,  no  one  who  was 
truly  a  dramatic  poet,  could  have  written  such  stuff. 
In  spite  of  all  their  cleverness,  they  are  unworthy  of  a 
poet  who  has  any  sense  of  life.  That  these  plays  are 
so  inferior  to  the  metrical  dramas  goes  to  show  that 
Hugo  needs  the  restraint  of  verse,  and  that  he  is  at 
hi?  best  when  working  under  the  limitations  of  the 


42  French  Dramatists. 

Alexandrine, — limitations,  which,  as  I  have  said,  are 
fatal  to  dramatic  poetry  of  the  highest  rank.  Putting 
this  and  that  together,  I  find  that  Hugo's  plays  are  melo- 
dramas, written  by  a  poet,  and  not  poetic  plays  written 
by  a  dramatic  poet.  In  Moliere's  plays,  as  in  Shak- 
spere's,  the  man  is  superior  to  the  event ;  but  in 
Hugo's,  as  in  Calderon's  and  in  Corneille's,  the  situa- 
tion dominates  the  characters.  Unlike  Calderon's  and 
Corneille's,  Hugo's  plays  are  not  poetic  in  conception, 
however  poetic  they  may  be  in  verbal  clothing.  Nei- 
ther the  plots  nor  the  personages  are  poetic  in  concep- 
tion. The  plot  is  melodramatic,  but  the  best  of  melo- 
dramas because  of  its  simplicity  and  strength,  and 
because  it  is  the  work  of  a  man  of  heavier  mental 
endowment  than  often  takes  to  melodrama.  Nor  are 
the  characters  more  poetic  than  the  situations :  they 
are  not  saturated  with  the  spirit  of  poesy,  and  lifted  up 
by  the  breath  of  the  muse.  Most  of  Hugo's  people, 
especially  the  tragic,  are  drawn  in  outline  in  mono- 
chrome :  they  are  impersonations  of  a  single  impulse. 
Miss  Baillie  wrote  a  series  of  Plays  for  the  Passions  : 
Hugo  gives  a  passion  apiece  to  each  of  his  people,  and 
lets  them  fight  it  out.  Put  one  of  Hugo's  villains,  the 
Don  Salluste  of  'RuyBlas,'  say,  —  a  sharp  silhouette, 
all  black,  — and  set  it  by  the  side  of  lago,  and  note  the 
rounded  and  life-like  complexity  of  Shakspere's  traitor. 
Or  compare  Hugo's  characters  with  Moliere's,  and  see 
how  thin  their  substance  seems,  how  petty  their 
natures,  in  spite  of  all  their  swelling  speech.  They 
have  not  the  muscle  and  the  marrow,  they  have  not 
the  light  and  the  air,  of  Moliere's  poetically  conceived 
creatures. 

Melodramatic  as  situations  and  characters  are,  how- 


Victor  Hugo.  43 

ever,  the  best  of  Hugo's  plays  are  still  poetic,  in  ap- 
pearance at  least.  This  is  because  Victor  Hugo  is  a 
great  poet,  although  not  a  great  dramatic  poet.  It  is 
because  his  plays,  while  they  are  melodramas  in  struc- 
ture, are  the  work  of  an  artist  in  words.  The  melo- 
dramatist,  when  he  has  once  constructed  the  play,  calls 
on  the  poet  to  write  it ;  for  in  Hugo  are  two  men, — a 
melodramatist  doubled  by  a  lyric  poet.  The  joints  of 
the  plot  are  hidden,  and  the  hollowness  of  the  charac- 
ters is  cloaked,  by  the  ample  folds  of  a  poetic  diction 
of  unrivalled  richness.  It  is  the  splendor  of  this  lyric 
speech  which  blinds  us  at  first  to  the  lack  of  inner  and 
vital  poetry  in  the  structure  it  decks  so  royally.  Al- 
though, therefore,  his  plays  are  immensely  effective  in 
performance,  and  his  characters  wear  at  times  the  ex- 
ternals of  poetic  conception,  Victor  Hugo  is  not  that 
rare  thing,  a  great  dramatic  poet,  —  a  thing  so  rare, 
indeed,  that  the  world  as  yet  has  seen  but  a  scant  half- 
score. 

There  is  no  need  to  say  here  that  Victor  Hugo's  glory 
does  not  depend  on  his  dramas,  nor,  indeed,  upon  his 
work  in  any  single  department  of  literature.  His 
genius  has,  turn  by  turn,  tried  almost  every  kind  of 
writing,  and  on  whatsoever  it  tried  it  has  left  its  mark. 
He  is  a  master-singer  of  lyrics  and  a  master-maker  of 
satires.  The  song  is  as  pure  as  the  spring  at  the  hill- 
side, and  the  satire  is  as  scorching  as  the  steel  when 
it  flows  from  the  crucible.  He  is  mighty  in  romance, 
and  moving  in  history ;  giving  us  in  '  Notre  Dame 
de  Paris  '  historical  romance,  and  in  the  '  History  of  a 
Crime '  romantic  history.  Even  in  criticism  and  phi- 
losophy he  has  done  his  stint  of  labor.  But  his  best 
work  is  not  merely  literary.  Literature  is  too  small  to 


44  French  Dramatists. 

hold  him,  and  the  finest  of  him  is  outside  of  it.  The 
best  part  of  him  has  got  out  of  literature  into  life. 
What  he  has  done  in  politics  and  philanthropy  is  on 
record,  and  he  who  runs  may  read  if  he  will.  The 
politics  may  at  times  have  been  a  little  erratic,  and  the 
philanthropy  may  have  seemed  sentimental  and  opin- 
ionated ;  yet  these  defects  are  but  dust  in  the  balance 
when  weighed  against  the  nobler  qualities  of  the  man. 
In  times  of  doubt  and  compromise  it  is  worth  much  to 
see  one  who  holds  fast  to  what  he  believes,  and  who 
stands  forth  for  it  in  lofty  and  resolute  fashion.  Dur- 
ing the  darkest  and  dirtiest  days  of  the  Second  Empire 
a  beacon-light  of  liberty  and  hope  and  faith  flashed  to 
France  from  a  rocky  isle  off  the  coast  where  dwelt  one 
exile  from  the  city  he  loved,  one  man  at  least  who 
refused  to  bow  the  head  or  bend  the  knee  before  the 
man  of  December  and  Sedan.  Beyond  and  above 
Hugo's  great  genius  is  his  great  heart.  He  is  the  poet 
of  the  proletarian  and  of  the  people ;  he  is  the  poet  of 
the  poor  and  the  weak  and  the  suffering ;  he  is  the 
poet  of  the  over-worked  woman  and  of  the  little  child ; 
he  is  the  friend  of  the  down-trodden  and  the  outcast ; 
and  his  is  the  truly  Christian  charity  which  droppeth 
like  the  gentle  dew  from  heaven. 

Mr.  Swinburne  concludes  the  ode  he  wrote  in  1865, 
'  To  Victor  Hugo  in  Exile,'  with  two  stanzas,  to  be  fitly 
quoted  here,  before  we  take  leave  of  the  foremost  figure 
among  all  European  men  of  letters  :  — 

"  Yea,  one  thing  more  than  this, 
We  know  that  one  thing  is, — 
The  splendor  of  a  spirit  without  blame, 
That  not  the  laboring  years 
Blind-born,  nor  any  fears, 


Victor  Hugo.  45 

Nor  men,  nor  any  gods,  can  tire  or  tame ; 
But  purer  power  with  fiery  breath 
Fills,  and  exalts  above  the  gulfs  of  death. 

Praised  above  men  be  thou, 

Whose  laurel-laden  brow, 
Made  for  the  morning,  droops  not  in  the  night ; 

Praised  and  beloved,  that  none 

Of  all  thy  great  things  done 
Flies  higher  than  thy  most  equal  spirit's  flight ; 

Praised,  that  nor  doubt  nor  hope  could  bend 
Earth's  loftiest  head,  found  upright  to  the  end." 


CHAPTER   III. 

ALEXANDRE    DUMAS. 

ON  the  nth  of  February,  1829,  a  full  year  before 
any  piece  of  Hugo's  was  played,  there  was  produced 
at  the  Theatre  Francois  a  five-act  drama,  full  of  fire 
and  action,  called  '  Henri  III.  et  sa  Cour,'  and  written 
by  Alexandre  Dumas,  a  young  quadroon,  who  owed  to 
his  fine  handwriting  a  place  as  clerk  under  the  Duke  of 
Orleans,  and  who  had  promised  himself  some  day  to 
live  by  his  pen  instead  of  his  penmanship. 

Like  Victor  Hugo,  Alexandre  Dumas  was  the  son 
of  a  revolutionary  general.  His  father,  the  Count 
Mathieu  Dumas,  was  the  son  of  the  Marquis  Davy 
de  la  Pailleterie.  In  his  characteristically  voluminous 
memoirs,  Dumas  tells  us  how  he  spent  his  early  youth 
in  the  country,  running  wild  and  laying  up  stores  of 
strength.  He  seems  to  have  grown  up  as  void  of  learn- 
ing as  he  was  of  fear.  His  mother  tried  to  get  him 
to  read  Corneille  and  Racine :  he  confesses  that  he 
was  prodigiously  bored  by  them.  But  one  day  there 
came  along  a  company  of  apprentice  actors  from  the 
conservatory,  and  gave  the  '  Hamlet '  of  the  good  and 
simple-minded  Ducis,  with  Hamlet  acted  in  imitation 
of  Talma.  It  made  so  great  an  impression  on  Dumas, 
that  when  he  wrote  his  memoirs,  thirty-two  years  after- 
ward, he  could  recall  distinctly  every  detail  of  the  per- 
formance. He  sent  to  Paris  for  the  '  Hamlet '  of  Ducis, 
and  in  three  days  he  had  the  part  by  heart.  He  was 
46 


Alexandre  Dumas.  47 

then  not  sixteen  years  old.  Two  or  three  years  later, 
he  ran  up  to  Paris,  and  saw  Talma  as  Sylla,  and  was 
introduced  to  him  as  a  young  man  who  aspired  to  be 
a  dramatist.  Talma  greeted  him  so  kindly  that  he  was 
emboldened  to  ask  the  great  actor  to  lay  hands  on  him 
in  consecration,  as  it  were,  and  to  bring  him  luck  in 
his  vocation.  "  So  be  it,"  said  Talma,  laying  his  hand 
on  the  youth's  head ;  "  Alexandre  Dumas,  I  baptize 
you  poet,  in  the  name  of  Shakspere,  of  Corneille,  and 
of  Schiller." 

When  he  was  twenty  years  of  age,  he  and  his  mother 
came  up  to  Paris,  and  he  got  himself  a  clerkship  under 
the  Duke  of  Orleans.  Then  he  took  up  in  earnest  the 
hard  trade  of  a  professional  playmaker.  In  the  first 
four  years  of  his  life  in  Paris,  he  succeeded  in  getting 
acted  three  vaudevilles  of  no  special  value,  and  each 
written  in  collaboration  with  one  or  two  of  his  com- 
rades, hopeful  and  struggling  youngsters  like  himself. 
He  made  also  a  tragedy  of  'Fiesque,'  imitated  from 
Schiller ;  but  he  had  not  been  able  to  place  it.  Then, 
in  1827,  arrived  the  English  actors ;  and  he  saw  in  suc- 
cession the  masterpieces  of  the  English  drama.  (He 
had  English  enough  to  follow  Shakspere,  as  he  had 
German  enough  to  paraphrase  Schiller.)  He  records 
the  immense  impression  made  on  him  by  this  first  sight 
of  real  passions  moving  men  of  flesh  and  blood.  Just 
before  the  English  performances  ended,  leaving  Dumas 
with  new  lights,  and  having  opened  beyond  him  new 
ranges  of  vision,  the  Salon  set  forth  its  annual  show  of 
pictures  and  sculptures  ;  and  here  Dumas  saw  two  bas- 
reliefs,  the  energy  and  firmness  of  which  struck  him. 
One  was  a  scene  from  the  'Abbot,'  and  the  other 
represented  the  death  of  Monaldeschi.  Dumas  did  not 


48  French  Dramatists. 

know  who  Monaldeschi  was :  so  he  borrowed  a  biogra- 
phical dictionary,  and  there  made  the  acquaintance  oi 
Christine  of  Sweden  and  of  her  physician-lover  ;  and 
he  began  at  once  to  work  their  story  into  a  five-act 
tragedy  in  verse.  When  it  was  done,  by  good  luck  he 
got  audience  of  Baron  Taylor,  the  manager  of  the 
Theatre  Franc_ais,  who  invited  him  to  read  it  before 
the  committee  of  comedians  which  had  the  accepting  of 
new  plays.  Very  comic  indeed,  and  very  characteristic 
of  the  changing  condition  of  the  drama  just  then,  was 
the  declaration  of  the  committee,  that  it  did  not  know 
whether  the  play  was  classic  or  romantic.  "  What  mat- 
ter?" asked  the  author:  "is  it  good,  or  bad?"  And 
the  committee  did  not  know  that  either.  Finally,  how- 
ever, it  accepted  the  piece  on  condition  that  it  was 
approved  by  one  of  the  regular  dramatists  of  the  house. 
So  Dumas  was  forced  to  leave  the  play  for  a  week  with 
Picard,  the  author  of  the  'Petite  Ville,'  imitated  by 
Kotzebue.  When  he  went  for  his  answer,  Picard 
asked  him  if  he  had  any  other  means  of  existence  than 
literature ;  and  when  Dumas  answered  that  he  had  a 
fifteen-hundred-franc  clerkship  under  the  Duke  of  Or- 
igans, the  withered  old  dramatist  handed  back  the 
manuscript  of  '  Christine/  saying,  "  Go  to  your  desk, 
young  man  !  Go  to  your  desk  !  " 

In  spite  of  this  chilling  criticism,  the  Come"die-Fran- 
c,aise  accepted  '  Christine,'  and  put  it  in  rehearsal.  But 
delays  arose,  and  disagreements  with  Samson,  accord- 
ing to  one  account,  and  with  Mile.  Mars,  according  to 
another;  and  in  a  little  while  Dumas  was  convinced 
that  '  Christine  '  would  never  be  acted  at  the  Theatre 
Franc.ais.  He  was  right  ;  and  his  first  drama,  like 
Hugo's,  was  brought  out  after  his  second.  It  was,  per- 


Alexandre  Dumas.  49 

haps,  well  for  Dumas  that  this  was  so,  for  it  is  a  great 
advantage  to  begin  by  hitting  the  bull's  eye ;  and 
'  Christine '  would  never  have  made  so  striking  a  suc- 
cess as  'Henri  III.'  After  he  was  established  as  a 
dramatist,  Dumas  remodelled  '  Christine ; '  and  from 
a  quasi-classic  tragedy  it  became  a  frankly  romantic 
"  trilogy  in  five  acts,  with  prologue  and  epilogue," 
with  changes  of  scene  to  justify  the  new  sub-title 
'  Stockholm,  Fontainebleau,  and  Rome,'  and  with  the 
introduction  even  of  a  wholly  new  and  important  char- 
acter, —  Paula.  As  the  original  version  is  no  longer 
before  us,  criticism  is  impossible.  No  doubt  it  was 
tamer  in  movement,  and  duller  in  color,  than  the  play 
as  we  have  it.  No  doubt  it  was  a  somewhat  timid 
attempt  at  Romanticism :  even  in  the  revised  version 
it  is  not  one  of  Durnas's  best.  The  verse  in  which  it  is 
written  is  verse :  it  is  not  poetry.  Dumas,  although 
not  exactly  constrained  in  writing  Alexandrines,  never 
handles  them  with  the  assured  ease  of  a  master.  Al- 
though he  bends  the  metre  to  obey  him,  the  result  is 
good  journeyman  verse-making,  nothing  more ;  and 
there  is  never  the  burst  of  lyric  fervor  which  often 
makes  Hugo's  lines  sing  themselves  into  the  memory. 

Dumas  threw  off  the  shackles  of  metre  when  he 
began  to  write  his  second  drama,  '  Henri  III.'  In 
style,  too,  as  well  as  in  speech,  it  was  ampler,  and  more 
frankly  romantic,  than  his  first.  Since  '  Christine '  had 
been  originally  outlined,  Hugo  had  published  the  pref- 
ace to  '  Cromwell,'  the  revolt  of  the  Romanticists  had 
gained  great  headway,  and  then  the  time  for  faltering 
between  the  two  schools  had  passed  forever.  '  Henri 
III.'  showed  no  hesitation.  It  was  a  bold,  not  to  say 
brutal  picture  of  an  epoch  of  history :  it  was  the  first 


50  French  Dramatists. 

French  play  in  which  history  was  set  squarely  on  the 
stage  much  as  Scott  had  shown  it  in  his  novels.  And, 
truth  to  tell,  Scott  had  his  share  in  the  drama,  directly 
as  well  as  indirectly.  Dumas  had  found  one  suggestion 
in  Anquetil,  and  another  in  the  '  Mernoires  de  1'Es- 
toile.'  By  combining  and  developing  these  hints  from 
the  records,  he  had  made  the  main  plot  of  his  play  ; 
utilizing  for  one  of  its  chief  situations  a  scene  from 
Scott's  'Abbot,' — probably  the  one  represented  in  the 
other  of  the  two  bas-reliefs.  Dumas  also  drew  on  his 
abandoned  version  of  Schiller's  'Fiesco.'  He  has  told 
us  that  he  had  studied  Schiller  and  Goethe  and  Calde- 
ron  and  Lope  de  Vega,  seeking  to  spy  out  the  secret 
of  their  skill ;  and  what  wonder  was  it  that  a  few 
fragments  of  the  foreign  authors  should  get  themselves 
somehow  worked  into  his  model  ?  Made,  in  a  measure, 
of  reminiscences,  'Henri  III.'  hangs  together  wonder- 
fully well,  and  has  a  unity  of  its  own.  Some  of  the 
brick  and  some  of  the  mortar  are  borrowed  without 
leave ;  but  the  finished  house  is  Dumas's  property  be- 
yond all  question. 

Alphonse  Royer,  who  was  present  at  the  first  per- 
formance, has  recorded  that  he  never  again  saw  such  a 
sight,  and  that  from  the  third  act  on  the  audience  was 
wild  with  excitement.  The  changing  scenes  and  star- 
tling situations  were  followed  with  breathless  interest. 
The  touches  of  local  color,  the  use  of  the  language, 
and  even  of  the  oaths  of  the  time,  the  ease  and  grace 
of  the  sketch  of  the  king's  court,  with  the  mignons 
playing  cup-and-ball,  the  life  and  vigor  of  the  whole 
drama,  charmed  and  delighted  an  audience  tired  with 
the  dignified  inanity  of  the  Classicists.  The  very  vio- 
lence of  the  action  gave  a  shock  of  pleasure  to  the 


Alexandre  Dumas.  5 1 

willing  spectators.  It  is  to  be  said,  too,  that  the  par- 
tisans of  the  Classicists,  not  afraid  of  the  first  play 
of  an  unknown  writer,  had  not  assembled  to  give  it 
battle,  as  they  did  a  year  later  when  '  Hernani '  was 
brought  out;  and  so  'Henri  III.'  took  them  by  surprise, 
and  gained  the  victory  before  they  could  rally.  A 
profitable  victory  it  was  for  the  author.  Before  writ- 
ing '  Henri  III.'  he  was  a  clerk  at  fifteen  hundred  francs 
a  year,  —  a  little  less  than  six  dollars  a  week.  '  Henri 
III.'  had  been  written  in  about  eight  weeks  ;  and,  in 
addition  to  what  he  received  from  the  Theatre  Franc,ais 
for  the  right  of  performance,  he  sold  the  copyright  for 
six  thousand  francs.  By  two  months'  labor  of  his  pen 
he  had  gained  far  more  than  he  could  have  made  in 
four  years  by  his  penmanship. 

Taking  all  things  into  consideration,  I  am  inclined  to 
call  'Henri  III.'  Dumas's  best  drama.  Looking  down 
the  long  list  of  his  plays,  it  is  not  easy  to  pick  out 
another  as  simple,  as  strong,  as  direct,  and  as  dignified. 
It  has  a  compressed  energy,  and  a  certain  elevation 
of  manner,  not  found  together  in  any  of  his  other 
plays.  Whether  the  best  of  his  dramas  or  not,  it  is 
emphatically  a  very  remarkable  play  to  have  been  writ- 
ten by  a  young  man  of  twenty-six.  It  is  especially 
remarkable  when  we  recall  that  it  sprang  up  from  the 
dust  of  the  Classicist  tragedies,  and  that  it  was  the 
first  flower  of  Romanticism  on  the  stage.  There  are 
many  things  one  might  single  out  for  praise.  For  one, 
the  intuition  by  which  Dumas  grasped  the  cardinal 
principle  of  historical  fiction,  deducing  it,  perhaps, 
from  the  example  set  by  Scott  in  his  novels.  This 
principle  prescribes  that  the  chief  characters  in  which 
the  interest  of  the  spectator  or  the  reader  is  to  be 


52  French  Dramatists. 

excited  shall  be  either  wholly  the  invention  of  the 
author ;  or,  if  suggested  by  actual  personages,  the 
originals  must  be  known  so  slightly  that  the  author 
may  mould  or  modify  them  as  he  please.  A  transcrip- 
tion of  historic  fact  may  then  serve  as  the  scaffolding 
of  the  story,  and  real  characters  may  be  reproduced  to 
give  it  solidity  and  pomp.  In  other  words,  history 
may  be  stretched  for  the  warp ;  but  fiction  must  supply 
the  woof.  This  is  what  Dumas  generally  did  in  his 
novels,  and  it  is  what  he  did  admirably  in  'Henri  III. 
We  see  the  crafty,  courageous,  and  effeminate  Henri 
III.  himself,  the  resolute,  masculine,  intriguing  Cath- 
erine de  Medicis,  and  the  stern  and  rigorous  Duke  of 
Guise ;  and  these  serve  to  set  off  the  high  and  noble 
heroine,  and  the  melancholy  and  devoted  hero,  who, 
although  bearing  historic  names,  are  in  fact  truly  pro- 
jections of  the  dramatist's  imagination. 

The  story  of  'Henri  III.'  has  a  purity  and  a  sobriety 
lacking  to  most  of  Dumas's  other  plays  ;  yet  it  yields  to 
none  of  them  in  effect,  in  freedom,  or  in  force.  Slight- 
ing the  purely  historical  incidents,  the  plot  may  be 
told  briefly.  The  weak-kneed  but  quick-witted  king, 
Henri  III.,  is  under  the  rule  of  his  mother,  Catherine 
de  Medicis,  who  fears  the  ascendency  gained  over  him 
by  St.  Megrim,  and  dreads  the  growing  power  in  the 
state  of  the  Duke  of  Guise.  She  craftily  sets  one 
against  the  other  by  fostering  the  love  of  St.  Megrim 
for  Catherine  of  Cleves,  wife  of  the  duke ;  and  she 
contrives  an  interview  between  them  at  an  astrologer's, 
—  an  interview  innocent  enough,  even  if  the  speedy 
coming  of  the  duke  had  not  put  to  flight  the  duchess, 
who  leaves  behind  her  a  handkerchief,  which  her  hus- 
band finds.  In  the  next  act  the  Duke  of  Guise  and 


Alexandre  Dumas.  53 

St.  Megrim  bandy  words  before  the  king,  who  makes  St. 
Megrim  a  duke  too,  that  he  may  fight  Guise  as  his 
peer  ;  and  the  combat  is  fixed  for  the  morrow.  But  the 
wily  Guise  has  no  desire  to  die  in  a  duel  :  so,  in  the 
third  act,  we  see  him  in  full  mail  armor  standing  over 
his  wife,  grasping  her  arm  with  his  iron  gauntlet,  and 
by  physical  pain  forcing  her  to  write  a  letter  to  St. 
Megrim,  bidding  him  to  her  palace  that  night.  In  the 
following  act  St.  Megrim  gets  the  note  ;  and  the  king, 
anxious  about  the  issue  of  the  single  combat  the  next 
morning,  lends  St.  Megrim  his  own  special  talisman 
against  death  by  fire  or  steel.  In  the  last  act  St. 
Megrim  comes  to  the  apartment  of  the  duchess  to 
keep  his  appointment.  While  Catherine  of  Cleves  is 
trying  to  tell  him  hastily  how  she  has  vainly  sought  to 
give  warning  of  the  trap  in  which  he  is  caught,  the 
outer  door  of  the  palace  clangs  to,  and  the  tread  of 
armed  men  is  heard  on  the  stairs.  Helpless  and 
unarmed  before  the  danger  which  draws  nearer  and 
nearer,  St.  Megrim  knows  no  way  to  turn,  when  sud- 
denly a  bundle  of  rope  falls  at  his  feet,  thrown  through 
the  window  by  the  duchess's  page,  who  has  overheard 
enough  to  suspect.  Catherine  thrusts  her  arm  through 
the  rings  of  the  door,  in  place  of  the  missing  staple,  to 
give  St.  Megrim  time  to  let  himself  down  to  the  ground. 
When  the  door  opens,  the  duke  strides  in,  and  goes 
straight  to  the  window.  St.  Megrim  has  fallen  among 
thieves,  for  Guise's  men  are  below.  He  is  wounded 
and  bleeding,  but  not  dead.  "  Perhaps  he  has  a  talis- 
man against  fire  and  steel,"  says  the  Duke  of  Guise : 
"here,  strangle  me  him  with  this."  And  he  drops 
down  to  his  hirelings  the  handkerchief  of  his  wife 
which  he  picked  up  at  the  beginning  of  the  play. 


54  French  Dramatists. 

This  telling  of  the  tale  is  bare  and  barren  indeed  - 
it  hides  the  good  points  while  exposing  the  weak. 
That  the  story  is  of  thinner  texture  at  times  than  one 
could  wish  is  sufficiently  obvious.  French  and  English 
wits  have  readily  found  spots  to  gird  at.  In  a  French 
parody  of  the  play  the  moral  was  summed  up  in  four 
lines,  which  made  fair  fun  of  the  handkerchief  expe- 
dient :  — 

"  Messieurs  et  mesdames,  cette  piece  est  morale 
Elle  prouve  aujourd'hui  sans  faire  de  scandale, 
Que  chez  un  amant,  lorsqu'on  va  le  soir, 
On  peut  oublier  tout  .  .  .  excepte"  son  mouchoir !  " 

Lord  Leveson  Gower's  English  adaptation,  called 
'Catherine  of  Cleves,'  gave  the  author  of  the  'In- 
goldsby  Legends'  a  chance  to  condense  the  story  in 
comic  verse,  and  to  give  it  at  least  one  keen  hit :  — 

"  De  Guise  grasped  her  wrist 

With  his  great  bony  fist, 
And  pinched  it,  and  gave  it  so  painful  a  twist, 
That  his  hard  iron  gauntlet  the  flesh  went  an  inch  in : 
She  did  not  mind  death,  but  she  could  not  stand  pinching!" 

'Henri  III.  et  sa  Cour '  is  not  a  play  of  the  highest 
order,  and  it  has  sufficiently  obvious  blemishes  ;  but 
it  is  a  strong  and  stirring  drama,  and  one  of  the  very 
best  of  its  class,  of  which  it  was  also  almost  the  first. 
It  is  a  very  much  better  play  than  '  Christine,'  written 
before  it,  and  brought  out  after  it,  or  than  '  Charles 
VII.  chez  ses  Grands  Vassaux,' — a  second  attempt  in 
rhymed  Alexandrines  scarcely  more  successful  than  the 
first.  It  is  a  better  play  than  either  of  the  two  other 
dramas  he  produced  in  1831.  Of  these  the  first  was 
the  frantically  immoral  and  preposterously  impossible 


Alexandra  Dumas.  55 

'  Antony,  of  which  Dumas,  strangely  enough,  was  so 
proud  that  he  was  wont  to  declare  it  and  his  son  his  two 
best  works  ;  and  the  second  was  '  Napoleon  Bonaparte,' 
which  he  had  cut  with  a  hasty  pair  of  scissors  from 
the  many  memoirs  of  the  time,  and  which  is  more  of 
a  panorama  than  a  play.  The  author  had  to  confess 
that  it  made  no  pretence  to  be  literature,  except  in  so 
far  as  a  single  character  gave  it  value,  —  the  character 
of  a  magnanimous  and  heroic  spy,  omniscient,  ubiqui- 
tous, and  ever  ready  to  sacrifice  himself  for  Napoleon. 
The  Napoleonic  piece  may  be  dismissed  thus  briefly, 
but  '  Antony '  is  too  important  and  too  powerful  a  play 
to  be  glanced  at  cursorily.  It  is  a  play  one  cannot 
help  pausing  over.  Even  in  the  thick  of  the  battle 
between  the  Classicists  and  the  Romanticists,  when  the 
latter  opposed  to  the  staid  decorum  of  the  former  the 
most  glowing  pictures  of  fiery  passion,  free  from  all 
bond  or  limit,  —  even  at  such  a  time  '  Antony '  gave  a 
sharp  shock  to  those  who  saw  it,  and  owed  its  success 
to  the  sudden  and  startling  surprise  upon  which  the 
curtain  fell,  and  which  left  the  first  spectators  too  as- 
tonished to  protest.  Byronic  influence,  always  power- 
ful among  the  exuberant  young  iconoclasts,  had  peopled 
the  dramas  of  the  day  with  fellows  of  the  Giaour, 
haughty,  self-contained,  and  passionate  bastards,  bear- 
ing their  bar  sinister  as  though  it  were  the  grand  cross 
of  a  mighty  order.  The  re-action  against  the  cold 
conventionalities  of  the  Classicist  tragedies  had  given 
birth  to  a  long  line  of  lovely  ladies,  sad  and  suffering, 
sentimental  and  sinning.  As  the  contemporary  epigram 
had  it,  — 

"  A  croire  ces  messieurs,  on  ne  voit  dans  nos  rues, 
Que  les  enfants  trouve's  et  les  femmes  perdues." 


56  French  Dramatists. 

Nowhere  are  these  two  figures  more  puissantly  fash- 
ioned and  more  powerfully  put  upon  their  feet  than  by 
Dumas  in  this  play ;  and  Antony  and  Adele  d'Hervey 
are  types  of  the  great  lengths  to  which  the  revolu- 
tionary zeal  of  the  revolting  Romanticists  could  carry 
them. 

Antony  had  loved  Adele  before  she  was  married, 
but  did  not  dare  ask  her  hand,  because  he  was  illegiti- 
mate. He  absents  himself  for  three  years,  and  then 
returns,  to  find  her  a  wife  and  a  mother.  In  the  first 
act  he  saves  her  life  from  a  runaway  before  her  door, 
and  is  brought  into  her  house  seriously  injured ;  and, 
to  remain  under  the  same  roof  with  her,  he  tears  the 
bandages  from  his  wounds.  In  the  second  act  his 
passion  is  so  powerful,  that  Adele  thinks  it  best  to 
seek  safety  for  her  fragile  virtue  by  secretly  joining 
her  husband,  who  is  at  Frankfort.  The  third  act 
passes  in  an  post-inn  on  the  road  to  Frankfort.  Antony 
has  learned  Adele's  flight,  and  discovered  her  desti- 
nation, and  contrived  to  pass  her  on  the  road.  He 
engages  the  only  two  rooms  in  the  house,  and  hires 
all  the  horses,  sending  them  on  with  his  servant ;  and, 
when  Adele  arrives,  she  is  forced  to  wait  for  fresh 
horses.  The  landlady  asks  Antony  to  cede  one  of  his 
rooms  to  a  lady  travelling  alone  ;  and  Antony  gives  up 
one  room,  having  seen  that  the  balcony  affords  a  means 
of  communication  with  the  other,  which  he  retains. 
Adele,  forced  to  pass  the  night  by  herself,  is  lonely 
and  nervous :  at  last,  however,  she  retires  to  sleep  in 
the  alcove  bed-room.  Antony  appears  outside  the 
window,  breaks  a  pane,  passes  in  his  arm,  shoots  back 
the  bolt,  and  steps  into  the  room.  As  he  locks  the 
door  through  which  the  landlady  went  out,  Adele  comes 


Alexandre  Dumas.  57 

back.     The   act   comes   to   an   end   after   this   abrupt 
dialogue  and  action  :  — 

AdMe.  —  Noise!  .  .  A  man!  ...  Oh ! 

Antony.  —  Silence!  (Taking  her  in  his  arms,  and  putting  a 
handkerchief  over  her  mouth.)  Tis  I !  ...  I,  Antony !  (CUR- 
TAIN.) 

In  the  fourth  act  we  are  back  in  Paris  again.  The 
relations  between  Antony  and  Adele  are  beginning  to 
be  talked  about.  Both  are  present  at  a  party,  and 
after  much  talk  about  the  new  literary  theories,  in  the 
course  of  which  Dumas  follows  the  Aristophanic  prece- 
dent, and,  in  a  sort  of  parabasis  delivered  by  one  of 
the  secondary  characters,  makes  a  personal  defence, 
as  well  as  a  direct  assault  on  the  '  Constitutionel,'  the 
newspaper  most  opposed  to  the  new  views,  Antony 
retorts  severely  on  a  scandal-monger,  who  reflects  by 
innuendo  on  Adele.  Made  wretched  by  this  attack, 
Adele  withdraws  early ;  and  Antony  follows  her  hur- 
riedly as  soon  as  his  servant  arrives  post-haste  from 
Frankfort,  announcing  the  hourly  return  of  Adele's 
husband.  He  gets  to  Adele's  house,  in  the  next  and 
last  act,  before  the  husband  ;  and  the  guilty  pair  make 
ready  for  flight.  All  of  a  sudden  Adele  bethinks  her- 
self of  her  child.  Antony  consents  to  take  the  child 
along.  But  the  mother  cries  out  that  her  open  shame, 
confessed  by  her  flight,  will  surely  be  visited  on  her 
daughter  in  the  future,  and  that  death  would  be  better 
than  exposure  and  humiliation.  In  the  midst  of  the 
heated  talk  of  Adele  and  Antony,  a  double  knock  is 
heard  at  the  street-door.  The  husband  has  got  back. 
Flight  is  no  longer  possible.  There  is  no  way  of  es- 
cape. Adele  begs  for  death  in  preference  to  shame. 
She  is  one  of  those  who  hold,  with  Tartuff e,  that,  — 


58  French  Dramatists. 

"  Le  scandale  du  monde  est  ce  qui  fait  Poffense, 
Et  ce  n'est  pas  pecher  que  pecher  en  silence  ! " 

Now,  when  silence  is  not  possible  and  scandal  is  in- 
evitable,  she  cries  aloud  for  death.  As  a  sharp  knock 
is  heard  on  the  door  of  the  room,  Antony  asks  her  if 
she  means  what  she  says,  if  she  would  welcome  a 
death  which  might  save  her  reputation  and  her  child's, 
if  she  would  forgive  him  for  slaying  her.  Adele,  out 
of  her  mind  with  the  excitement  of  the  moment,  begs 
for  death.  Antony  kisses  her  and  stabs  her.  Then 
the  door  is  broken  in.  The  husband  and  servants  rush 
in,  and  stand  in  horror  as  they  see  Adele  lying  in 
death.  "  Dead  :  yes,  dead  ! "  says  Antony  heroically. 
"She  resisted  me,  and  I  assassinated  her."  On  this 
the  curtain  falls  finally. 

Of  course  this  story  is  simply  absurd,  if  you  consider 
it  calmly ;  but  this  is-  just  what  the  author  will  not  let 
you  do.  He  allows  no  time  at  all  for  consideration. 
He  hurries  you  along  with  the  feverish  rush  of  the 
action,  as  resistless  as  it  is  restless.  As  the  younger 
Dumas  has  told  us,  'Antony'  is  to  be  "studied  by  all 
young  writers  who  wish  to  write  for  the  stage,  as 
nowhere  else  is  interest,  audacity,  and  skill  carried  so 
far."  The  elder  Dumas  knew  how  audacious  his  story 
was,  and  how  important  to  its  success  was  the  leaving 
of  as  little  time  as  possible  to  the  play-goer  for  sober 
second-thought.  At  the  first  performance,  when  the 
curtain  fell  on  the  fourth  act  there  was  great  enthusi- 
asm. Dumas  sprang  upon  the  stage,  and  shouted  to 
the  carpenters,  "A  hundred  francs  for  you  if  you  get 
the  curtain  up  before  the  applause  ceases  ! "  By  this 
presence  of  mind  he  succeeded  in  springing  his  very 
ticklish  fifth  act  upon  the  audience  while  they  were 
still  excited  over  the  fourth. 


Alexandre  Dumas.  59 

The  proud  and  lonely  bastard  had  been  called  Didier, 
and  had  made  love  to  Victor  Hugo's  Marion  Delorme, 
before  he  was  Antony,  the  lover  and  assassin  of  Adele 
d'Hervey.  There  was  more  than  a  family  likeness 
between  Dumas's  hero  and  Hugo's  ;  and  when  '  Marion 
Delorme,'  written  in  1828,  and  forbidden  by  the  cen- 
sors, was  at  last  acted  in  1831,  not  long  after  'Antony,' 
charges  of  plagiarism  were  not  wanting.  Alexandre 
Dumas  came  forward  at  once,  and  said  ingenuously 
enough,  that  if  there  was  a  plagiarist  it  was  he,  as  he 
had  heard  Victor  Hugo  read  '  Marion  Delorme '  before 
'  Antony '  was  written.  In  his  memoirs  Dumas  frankly 
sets  down  the  great  effect  the  hearing  of  'Marion 
Delorme '  had  had  upon  him,  and  confesses  that  it 
had  greatly  enlarged  his  dramatic  horizon.  By  one 
of  the  curious  compensations,  of  which  there  are  a 
many  in  the  history  of  literature,  it  seems  as  though 
Dumas  was  enabled  to  pay  his  debt  to  Hugo  in  full ; 
for  it  can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  for  '  Lucrece  Bor- 
gia,' Hugo,  perhaps  and  indeed  probably  unconsciously, 
was  indebted  to  the  '  Tour  de  Nesle '  of  Dumas. 

Although  we  can  detect  Antony's  father  in  Didier, 
it  would  be  a  hopeless  task  to  attempt  to  discover  or 
count  all  the  children  of  Antony  himself.  A  play, 
like  any  other  entity,  is  perhaps  best  judged  by  its 
posterity.  A  very  successful  play  like  'Antony'  has 
a  progeny  as  numerous  as  a  patriarch  of  old.  Antony's 
offspring  are  a  pernicious  brood,  from  the  elder  Dumas's 
own  efforts  to  put  him  again  on  the  stage,  under  other 
names,  down  to  the  'Princess  of  Bagdad,'  the  latest 
play  of  the  younger  Dumas,  the  three  chief  characters 
of  which  all  show  the  hereditary  characteristics.  In 
the  list  of  the  French  plays  of  the  past  half-century 


60  French  Dramatists. 

there  is  a  long  line  of  monsters,  violent,  headstrong, 
bloody,  and  impossible ;  and  all  of  them  own  Antony 
for  their  father.  Of  late,  as  scepticism  grows,  and 
passion  forcibly  repressed  is  more  fashionable  than 
passion  forcibly  expressed,  the  play-going  public  does 
not  take  very  kindly  to  Antony  or  to  his  children.  It 
is  many  a  long  year  since  'Antony'  itself  has  been 
acted  in  Paris :  it  is  as  long,  nearly,  since  any  play 
in  which  his  influence  is  emphatic  and  visible  has 
had  any  success  on  the  French  stage.  The  '  Princess 
of  Bagdad,'  the  latest  play  of  the  younger  Dumas,  is 
almost  as  preposterous  an  impossibility  as  'Antony* 
itself;  and  in  spite  of  its  modern  dress,  cut  in  the 
latest  fashion,  and  trimmed  with  the  sharp  wit  of 
which  its  author  alone  has  the  secret,  —  in  spite  of 
the  fame  of  the  dramatist  and  the  aid  of  some  of  the 
chief  actors  of  the  Comedie-Frangaise,  the  '  Princess 
of  Bagdad'  has  been  a  distinct  and  dismal  failure. 
Fifty  years  ago  '  Antony '  was  as  distinct  a  success. 
The  world  moves.  Outside  of  France,  neither  'An- 
tony '  nor  Antony-ism  has  ever  been  popular ;  and,  so  far 
as  I  know,  there  has  never  been  acted  in  any  English 
or  American  theatre  any  adaptation  of  '  Antony.' 

After  'Antony/  the  next  of  Dumas's  dramas  which 
needs  consideration  here  is  the  'Tour  de  Nesle.'  This 
is  quite  as  remarkable  a  play  as  '  Henri  III.'  or  '  Antony.' 
It  is  a  play  of  the  same  kind,  but  more  exciting,  more 
terrible,  more  brutal.  The  dramatist  has  given  another 
turn  to  the  screw,  and  the  pressure  is  more  intense. 
Considered  solely  by  its  effect  in  the  theatre,  the  '  Tour 
de  Nesle'  is  one  of  the  most  powerful  plays  ever  written. 
The  clash  of  conflicting  interests  and  emotions  catches 
the  attention  in  the  first  scene,  and  holds  it  breath- 


Alexandre  Dumas.  61 

less  till  the  last.  There  is  a  resistless  rush  of  action : 
improbabilities  so  glaring  that  on  other  occasions  you 
would  cry  aloud,  are  here  so  dexterously  veiled,  and  so 
promptly  turned  to  advantage,  that  you  have  neither 
time  nor  wish  to  protest.  Situation  presses  after  situa- 
tion, each  stronger  than  the  other ;  a  complicated  plot, 
intricate  in  its  convolutions,  unrolls  itself  with  the 
utmost  ease  and  simplicity  :  the  eye  is  kept  awake,  and 
the  ear  alert ;  and  the  interest  never  flags  for  a  moment, 
from  the  rising  of  the  curtain  to  the  going-down  thereof. 
Then,  oh,  then !  with  a  final  pause,  there  is  at  last  and 
for  the  first  time  a  chance  for  reflection,  and  you  begin 
to  wonder  what  manner  of  monster  this  is  which  has 
held  you  motionless,  and  almost  panting,  for  so  many 
hours  ;  and  you  begin,  it  may  be,  to  suspect  that  the 
drama  is  a  series  of  absurdities,  —  a  phantasmagoric 
nightmare.  But  whatever  it  is,  and  however  much  sober 
second-thought  may  find  to  cavil  at,  its  power,  its  sheer 
brute  force,  is  indisputable. 

Outcry  has  been  made  about  the  immorality  of  '  Henri 
III.'  and  the  'Tour  de  Nesle,'  surely  without  reason. 
'  Antony '  is  immoral,  it  is  true,  shamelessly  and  grossly 
immoral;  but  not  'Henri  III.,'  or  the  'Tour  de  Nesle.' 
The  latter  has  been  termed  a  tissue  of  horrors,  because 
it  contains  murder  and  adultery  and  incest.  But  Dumas 
tries  to  get  no  sham  pathos  out  of  these  sins  ;  and  they 
are  not  dallied  with,  or  in  any  way  palliated.  Dark 
crimes  were  frequent  enough  in  the  dark  days  in  which 
the  action  of  the  '  Tour  de  Nesle '  is  laid.  Nor  are  these 
crimes  so  revolting  that  they  are  without  the  pale  of  art, 
as  are  some  of  the  subjects  Calderon  treats  for  example. 
The  horrible  is  not  necessarily  immoral ;  rather,  if  any 
thing,  the  reverse.  The  accumulation  of  sin  in  the 


62  French  Dramatists. 

1  Tour  de  Nesle  *  is  not  more  horrible  than  it  is  in  the 
'  Medea,'  nor  is  it  as  horrible  here  as  it  is  in  the  '  CEdi- 
pus.'  It  must  be  confessed  at  once  that  the  effect  is 
more  horrible  in  the  modern  play  than  in  the  ancient, 
because  the  Greek  tragedians  were  poets,  and  their 
later  imitators  have  tried  to  catch  also  something  of 
the  poetic  spirit.  But  Dumas's  handling  of  a  similar 
situation  has  no  touch  of  poetry  :  it  is  prosaic,  baldly 
prosaic  ;  and  the  horrors  stand  forth  in  their  nakedness. 
The  modern  French  play  may  be  more  shocking,  but 
essentially  it  is  no  more  immoral,  than  the  old  Greek 
tragedy.  After  all,  morality  is  an  affair,  not  of  subject, 
but  of  treatment ;  and  Dumas's  treatment,  while  not  as 
austere  and  ennobling  as  the  Greek,  is  not  insidious  or 
vicious.  Except  in  so  far  as  all  over-exciting  exhibitions 
are  harmful,  I  do  not  believe  that  any  one  ever  has  been 
injured  by  the  'Tour  de  Nesle,'  which  has  been  acted 
in  half  the  theatres  of  the  United  States  at  one  time 
or  another  during  the  past  half-century. 

It  was  with  intention  that  reference  was  made  to 
Calderon.  There  is  something  in  the  exuberant  prodi- 
gality of  Dumas's  production  which  recalls  the  most 
brilliant  days  of  the  Spanish  stage.  Dumas  can  stand 
the  comparison  with  Lope  de  Vega  and  Calderon  :  it  is 
not  altogether  to  his  disadvantage.  In  the  qualities  in 
which  they  were  most  eminent,  —  ease  and  fertility  and 
skill,  —  he  was  also  most  abundant.  In  the  vastness  of 
his  production  he  recalls  Lope  de  Vega ;  but  it  is  per- 
haps rather  Calderon  than  Lope  de  Vega  with  whom 
Dumas  may  be  compared  when  one  considers  quality 
more  than  quantity.  He  lacked  the  simple  faith  of 
Calderon,  and  Calderon  was  without  the  self-conscious- 
ness which  was  so  strong  in  Dumas  ;  and  the  points  of 


Alexandre  Dumas.  63 

resemblance  are  scarcely  more  than  the  points  of  dis- 
similarity. Archbishop  Trench  dwells  on  the  technical 
playmaking  skill  of  Calderon,  in  which  Dumas  was 
assuredly  his  equal  ;  while  in  fecundity  of  character,  if 
not  of  situation,  the  French  dramatist  surpasses  the 
Spanish.  Where  Dumas  is  inferior,  is  in  that  inde- 
scribable quality  we  call  "  style."  Calderon,  like  Victor 
Hugo,  is  a  playwright  doubled  with  a  lyric  poet  :  in  the 
highest  sense  neither  is  a  true  dramatic  poet,  as  are 
^Eschylus,  Shakspere,  Moliere,  and  Schiller.  The  dis- 
tinction between  the  clever  playwright  who  is  also  a 
lyric  poet,  and  the  true  dramatic  poet,  is  not  at  all 
trivial,  even  if  it  seem  so.  Much  as  Dumas  was  like 
Calderon  in  ease  and  abundance  and  skill,  he  was  far 
inferior  in  that  he  was  not  a  poet,  and  that  he  is  alto- 
gether lacking  in  elevation. 

It  was  in  1836  that  Dumas  brought  out  'Don  Juan 
de  Marana ;  or,  The  Fall  of  an  Angel,'  mystery  in  five 
acts.  This  is  the  play  of  his  which  puts  us  most  in 
mind  of  Calderon.  The  story  is  one  which  the  author 
of  '  Life  is  a  Dream  '  might  well  have  told,  and  would 
have  told  with  a  simple  sincerity  and  an  honest  faith  not 
to  be  found  in  Dumas's  drama.  The  bold  use  of  sacred 
personages  as  part  of  the  machinery  of  the  play  is  more 
in  the  style  of  the  pious  and  priestly  Calderon  than  of 
a  worldling  like  Dumas.  The  chief  figure  is  a  repetition 
of  the  traditional  type  of  Don  Juan,  accompanied  through- 
out by  the  good  and  evil  angels  of  his  family,  striving 
with  each  other  for  his  soul.  Most  of  the  scenes  are  on 
the  earth  :  though  there  is  one  under  the  earth,  in  a 
tomb,  in  which  a  dead  man  comes  to  life  for  a  moment ; 
and  another  above  the  earth,  in  the  heavens,  in  which 
the  good  angel  begs  permission  of  the  Virgin  Mary  to 


64  French  Dramatists. 

be  allowed  to  go  down  into  the  world  as  a  woman,  to 
be  more  closely  united  with  her  beloved  Don  Juan.  In 
the  course  of  this  truly  extraordinary  production  we 
have  duels  and  deaths  by  the  half-dozen,  suicides,  seduc- 
tions, elopements,  murders,  poisonings,  ghosts,  and  spec 
tral  visions  ;  "  and  what  is  more,  is  more  than  man  may 
know."  Calderon  handles  elements  not  unlike  these 
without  shocking  our  moral  sense  :  however  extravagant 
the  events  in  his  tale,  it  is  easy  to  see  they  have  been 
touched  by  the  magic  wand  of  the  poet.  Dumas  had 
to  use  a  showman's  pointer  instead  of  the  poet's  wand ; 
and  so,  in  spite  of  all  effort  to  moralize,  his  precious 
hodge-podge  is  not  exactly  edifying. 

'  Don  Juan  de  Marana '  is  one  of  the  plays  against 
which  Thackeray  particularly  protested  in  his  essay  on 
French  Dramas  and  Melodramas,  reprinted  in  the  '  Paris 
Sketch-Book.'  With  all  his  liberality  and  fondness  for 
freedom,  this  play  affected  him  so  unpleasantly,  that  he 
cried  aloud  for  government  interference,  and  the  putting- 
down  of  such  indecent  entertainments  by  the  stern 
hand  of  the  law.  It  is  not  a  little  curious  that  Thack- 
eray, who  lost  no  opportunity  of  heartily  praising 
Dumas's  novels,  has  only  words  of  reprobation  for  his 
plays.  For  one  thing,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
Dumas  had  not  regularly  set  up  as  a  novelist,  with  a 
sign  over  his  door  and  daily  office-hours,  when  the 
'  Paris  Sketch-Book '  was  written  :  he  was  known  then 
only  as  a  dramatist.  The  charm  of  the  story-teller  had 
not  yet  disposed  Thackeray,  whose  morality  was  stout 
and  sturdy,  to  look  with  lenity  on  Dumas's  slipshod 
ethics.  Then,  again,  Thackeray  himself  had  not  a  very 
quick  feeling  for  strength  of  situation  and  stage-effects 
in  general,  and  perhaps  he  was  therefore  not  precisely 


Alexandre  Dumas.  65 

the  critic  to  appreciate  at  its  full  value  Dumas's  best 
quality.  Whatever  the  cause  of  Thackeray's  lack  of 
liking  for  Dumas  as  a  dramatist,  it  is  certain  that  he 
did  not  like  him,  and  showed  it  plainly  in  the  essay 
already  referred  to.  Not  only  does  he  fall  foul  of 
'  Don  Juan  de  Marana,'  but  he  makes  fun  of  some  of 
the  rhodomontade  which  fills  the  preface  to  '  Caligula : ' 
harmless  enough  it  seems  to  us  now,  and  not  to  be 
taken  seriously.  Besides  '  Caligula,'  which  failed,  Thack- 
eray also  dissected  with  the  finest-edged  scalpel  of  his 
sarcasm,  '  Kean,'  a  drama  the  action  of  which  Dumas 
chose  to  lay  in  England.  In  spite  of  its  success,  due 
no  doubt  for  the  most  part  to  the  acting  of  Frederic 
Lemaitre,  '  Kean '  can  scarcely  be  considered  a  fair 
specimen  of  Dumas  at  his  best.  The  hero  is  Edmund 
Kean,  most  erratic  and  most  miserable  of  Mother  Ca- 
rey's chickens ;  and  Dumas,  with  a  truly  Parisian  dis- 
regard for  exact  facts,  makes  Kean  indeed  a  tragedy 
hero.  Thackeray  has  so  thoroughly  shown  the  flimsi- 
ness  and  absurdity  of  the  play  that  nothing  remains  to 
be  said. 

I  have  called  '  Don  Juan  de  Marana '  a  hodge-podge, 
not  merely  because  the  drama  has  no  very  distinct  unity 
of  design,  but  more  particularly  because  it  was  com- 
pounded of  scraps  stolen  from  half  a  score  authors. 
The  outline  of  plot  and  character  had  been  borrowed 
from  Moliere,  of  course,  and  more  especially  from  Meri- 
me"e  ;  and  individual  incidents  had  been  taken  from 
Goethe,  Musset,  Scott,  Shakspere,  and  even  "Monk" 
Lewis.  It  must  be  confessed  at  once  that  this  proceed- 
ing was  not  unusual  with  Dumas,  although  the  plagia- 
rism is  rarely  as  flagrant  as  here.  All  through  his  earlier 
plays  are  scattered  little  bits  of  Scott  and  Schiller  and 


66  French  Dramatists. 

Lope  de  Vega,  turned  to  excellent  account,  and  firmly 
joined  to  the  rest  of  the  work.  The  prologue  of  '  Rich- 
ard Darlington '  is  from  Scott's  '  Chronicles  of  the 
Canongate.'  Generally  it  is  but  a  hint,  a  suggestion,  an 
effect,  an  incident,  a  situation,  which  he  took  unto  him- 
self. Sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of  'Henri  III.,'  he 
borrowed  from  two  or  three  authors.  Sometimes,  as  in 
'Don  Juan  de  Marana,'  although  the  whole  play  was 
plainly  his  own,  nearly  all  the  separate  scenes  could  be 
traced  to  other  authors.  Sometimes  he  even  took  a 
play  ready  made,  and  condescended  to  the  vulgar  adap- 
tation of  which  his  own  plays  have  only  too  often  been 
the  victims  in  English.  Dean  Milman's  '  Fazio  '  was 
thus  turned  into  French  verse  as  the  '  Alghimiste.' 
Sometimes,  again,  only  the  motive  of  the  action  came 
from  outside,  and  the  development  was  all  his  own: 
thus  Racine's  '  Andromaque '  furnished  the  basis  of 
'Charles  VII.,'  and  Dumas  boldly  braved  the  compari- 
son by  the  epigraph  on  his  title-page,  "  Cur  non?  " 

Ben  Jonson,  we  are  told,  once  dreamed  that  he  saw 
the  Romans  and  Carthaginians  fighting  on  his  big  toe. 
No  doubt  Dumas  had  not  dissimilar  dreams ;  for  his 
vanity  was  at  least  as  stalwart  and  as  frank  as  Ben 
Jonson's.  To  defend  himself  against  all  charges  of 
plagiarism,  the  French  dramatist  echoed  the  magnilo- 
quent phrase  of  the  English  dramatist,  and  declared 
that  he  did  not  steal,  he  conquered.  It  is  but  justice 
to  say  that  there  was  no  mean  and  petty  pilfering  about 
Dumas.  He  annexed  as  openly  as  a  statesman,  and 
made  no  attempt  at  disguise.  In  his  memoirs  he  is 
very  frank  about  his  sources  of  inspiration,  and  tells  us 
at  length  where  he  found  a  certain  situation,  and  what  it 
suggested  to  him,  and  how  he  combined  it  with  another 


Alexandre  Dumas.  67 

effect  which  had  struck  him  somewhere  else.  When 
one  goes  to  the  places  thus  pointed  out,  one  finds  some- 
thing very  different  from  what  it  became  after  it  had 
passed  through  Dumas's  hands,  and,  more  often  than 
not,  far  inferior  to  it.  It  can  scarcely  be  said  that 
Dumas  touched  nothing  he  did  not  adorn  ;  for  he  once 
laid  sacrilegious  hands  on  Shakspere,  and  brought 
out  a  '  Hamlet '  with  a  very  French  and  epigrammatic 
last  act.  But  whatever  he  took  from  other  authors  he 
made  over  into  something  very  different,  something 
truly  his  own,  something  that  had  Dumas  fecit  in  the 
corner,  even  though  the  canvas  and  the  colors  were  not 
his  own.  The  present  M.  Dumas  asserts  that  "there 
are  no  original  ideas,  especially  in  dramatic  literature : 
there  are  only  new  points  of  view."  Granting  this,  as 
we  may,  it  remains  to  be  said  that  no  one  ever  took 
more  new  points  of  view  than  Dumas.  In  a  word,  all 
his  plagiarisms,  and  they  were  not  a  few,  are  the  veriest 
trifles  when  compared  with  his  indisputable  and  extraor- 
dinary powers. 

Besides  plagiarism,  Dumas  has  been  accused  of 
"devilling,"  as  the  English  term  it;  that  is  to  say,  of 
putting  his  name  to  plays  written  either  wholly  or  in 
part  by  others.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  accusation 
can  be  sustained,  although  many  of  the  separate  speci- 
fications are  groundless.  The  habit  of  collaboration 
obtains  widely  in  France ;  and  collaboration  runs  easily 
into  "  devilling."  When  two  men  write  a  play  together, 
and  one  of  them  is  famous  and  the  other  unknown, 
there  is  a  strong  temptation  to  get  the  full  benefit  of 
celebrity,  and  to  say  nothing  at  all  about  the  author 
whose  name  has  no  market-value.  That  Dumas  yielded 
to  it  now  and  then  is  not  to  be  wondered  at.  There 


68  French  Dramatists. 

was  something  imperious  in  his  character,  as  there  was 
something  imperial  in  his  power.  He  had  dominion 
over  so  many  departments  of  literature,  that  he  had 
accustomed  himself  to  be  monarch  of  all  he  surveyed ; 
and  if  a  follower  came  with  the  germ  of  a  plot,  or  a 
suggestion  for  a  strong  situation,  Dumas  took  it  as  trib- 
ute due  to  his  superior  ability.  In  his  hands  the  hint 
was  worked  out,  and  made  to  render  all  it  had  of  effect. 
Even  when  he  had  avowed  collaborators,  as  in  '  Rich- 
ard Darlington,'  he  alone  wrote  the  whole  play.  His 
partners  got  their  share  of  the  pecuniary  profits,  bene- 
fiting by  his  skill  and  his  renown  ;  and  most  of  them 
did  not  care  whether  he  who  had  done  the  best  of  the 
work  should  get  all  the  glory  or  not.  At  times,  too,  as 
in  the  case  of  '  Perrinet  Leclerc '  and  of  the  '  Tour  de 
Nesle,'  his  name  did  not  appear  at  all :  he  tells  us  in 
his  memoirs  that  the  former  was  in  part  his  handi- 
work, and  it  is  not  even  yet  included  in  his  collected 
plays. 

The  case  of  the  '  Tour  de  Nesle '  is  different,  and 
not  a  little  complicated.  Dumas  has  written  a  long 
and  somewhat  disingenuous  history  of  the  play.  It 
seems  that  M.  Fre'de'ric  Gaillardet  (afterward  the  found- 
er of  the  Courier  des  £tats-Unis  in  New  York)  wrote  the 
'  Tour  de  Nesle,'  and  took  it  to  Harel,  the  manager  of 
the  Porte  St.  Martin  Theatre.  Harel  saw  in  it  the  raw 
material  of  a  strong  piece,  and  accepted  it,  subject  to 
revision  by  a  more  practised  hand.  He  sent  the  play 
to  Jules  Janin,  who  re-wrote  it,  and  then  knew  enough 
to  see  that  the  result  was  hopelessly  undramatic. 
Harel  then  took  Janin's  manuscripts  to  Dumas,  who, 
according  to  his  own  account,  discarded  most  of  the 
original  play,  and  wrote  a  new  drama  around  the  central 


Alexandre  Dumas.  69 

situations.  Having  thus  made  what  was  substantially 
a  new  play,  Dumas  arranged  with  Harel  that  M.  Gail- 
lardet  should  get  the  full  author's  fee  which  the  Porte 
St.  Martin  The'atre  was  accustomed  to  pay,  and  that 
his  own  pay  should  be  independent  of  M.  Gaillardet's. 
In  spite  of  Harel's  repeated  requests,  Dumas  refused  to 
allow  his  name  to  be  put  on  the  bills.  Under  such  cir- 
cumstances a  play  is  announced  as  by  MM.  Gaillardet 
and  *  *  *  but  Harel  chose  to  announce  the  '  Tour  de 
Nesle '  as  by  MM.  *  *  *  and  Gaillardet.  M.  Gaillardet 
rushed  into  print,  and  Dumas  retorted,  setting  forth 
his  own  share  in  the  composition  of  the  drama.  After 
a  while  Dumas  and  M.  Gaillardet  fought  a  bloodless 
duel.  Then  there  was  a  lawsuit.  After  many  years, 
peace  was  declared,  and  M.  Gaillardet  was  pleased  to 
acknowledge  the  great  service  Dumas  had  rendered 
to  the  'Tour  de  Nesle.'  Looking  back  now,  one  can 
scarcely  have  a  doubt  as  to  whom  the  success  of  the 
drama  was  due,  —  whether  to  M.  Gaillardet,  who  had 
not  done  any  thing  like  it  before,  and  who  has  not  done 
any  thing  like  it  since,  or  to  Dumas,  who  had  shown  in 
'Henri  III.'  and  'Antony'  his  ability  to  write  a  play 
of  precisely  the  same  quality.  The  original  sequence 
of  situations  was  no  doubt  suggested  by  M.  Gaillardet ; 
but  the  play  as  it  stands  is  unequivocally  the  handi- 
work of  Dumas. 

That  Dumas  plagiarized  freely  in  his  earliest  plays, 
and  had  the  aid  of  "  devils  "  in  the  second  stage  of  his  ca- 
reer, is  not  to  be  denied,  and  neither  proceeding  is 
praiseworthy  ;  but,  although  he  is  not  blameless,  it  irks 
one  to  see  him  pilloried  as  a  mere  vulgar  appropriator 
of  the  labors  of  other  men.  The  exact  fact  is,  that  he 
had  no  strict  regard  for  mine  and  thine.  He  took  as 


7O  French  Dramatists. 

freely  as  he  gave.  In  literature,  as  in  life,  he  was  a 
spendthrift ;  and  a  prodigal  is  not  always  as  scrupu- 
lous as  he  might  be  in  replenishing  his  purse.  Dumas's 
ethics  deteriorated  as  he  advanced.  One  may  safely 
say,  that  there  is  none  of  the  plays  bearing  his  name 
which  does  not  prove  itself  his  by  its  workmanship. 
When,  however,  he  began  to  write  serial  stories,  and  to 
publish  a  score  of  volumes  a  year,  then  he  trafficked  in 
his  reputation,  and  signed  his  name  to  books  which  he 
had  not  even  read.  An  effort  has  been  made  to  show 
that  even  'Monte  Cristo'  and  the  'Three  Muske- 
teers '  series  were  the  work  of  M.  Auguste  Maquet,  and 
that  Dumas  contributed  to  them  only  his  name  on  the 
titlepage.  It  is  foreign  to  my  purpose  now  to  consider 
Dumas  as  a  writer  of  romance ;  but,  as  these  novels 
were  at  once  cut  up  into  plays,  a  consideration  of  their 
authorship  is  in  order  here.  I  must  confess  that  I  do 
not  see  how  any  one  with  any  pretence  to  the  critical 
faculty  can  doubt  that  '  Monte  Cristo'  and  the  'Three 
Musketeers '  are  Dumas's  own  work.  That  M.  Maquet 
made  historical  researches,  accumulated  notes,  invented 
scenes  even,  is  probable ;  but  the  mighty  impress  of 
Dumas's  hand  is  too  plainly  visible  in  every  important 
passage  for  us  to  believe  that  either  series  owes  more 
to  M.  Maquet  than  the  service  a  pupil  might  fairly 
render  to  a  master.  That  these  services  were  consid- 
erable is  sufficiently  obvious  from  the  printing  of  M. 
Maquet's  name  by  the  side  of  Dumas's  on  the  title- 
pages  of  the  dramatizations  from  the  stories.  That  it 
was  Dumas's  share  of  the  work  which  was  inconsidera- 
ble is  as  absurd  as  it  is  to  scoff  at  his  creative  faculty 
because  he  was  wont  to  borrow.  Setter  Castelar  has 
said  that  all  Dumas's  collaborators  together  do  nov 


Alexandre  Dumas.  71 

weigh  half  as  much  in  the  literary  balance  as  Dumas 
alone  ;  and  this  is  true.  I  have  no  wish  to  reflect  on 
the  talents  of  Dinaux,  the  author  of  '  Thirty  Years,  or 
a  Gambler's  Life,'  and  of  '  Louise  de  Lignerrolles,'  or 
on  the  talents  of  M.  Maquet  himself,  whose  own  novels 
and  plays  have  succeeded,  and  who  is  so  highly 
esteemed  by  his  fellow-dramatists  as  to  have  been  elect- 
ed and  re-elected  the  president  of  the  Society  of  Dra- 
matic Authors ;  yet  I  must  say  that  the  plays  which 
either  Dinaux  or  M.  Maquet  has  written  by  himself  do 
not  show  the  possession  of  the  secret  which  charmed 
us  in  the  work  in  which  they  helped  Dumas.  It  is  to 
be  said,  too,  that  the  later  plays  taken  from  his  own 
novels,  in  which  Dumas  was  assisted  by  M.  Maquet, 
are  very  inferior  to  his  earlier  plays,  written  wholly  by 
himself.  They  are  mere  dramatizations  of  romances, 
and  not  in  a  true  sense  dramas  at  all.  The  earlier 
plays,  however  extravagant  they  might  be  in  individual 
details,  had  a  distinct  and  essential  unity  not  to  be 
detected  in  the  dramatizations,  which  were  little  more 
than  sequences  of  scenes  snipped  with  the  scissors 
from  the  interminable  series  of  tales  of  adventure. 
How  could  the  plot  of  the  'Three  Musketeers,'  —  so 
far  as  it  has  any  single  plot,  —  how  could  it  be  com- 
pressed within  the  limits  of  five,  or  even  of  six  or 
seven  acts  ?  How  could  there  be  any  of  the  single- 
ness of  impression  which  is  a  necessary  element  of 
good  dramatic  art  in  a  dramatization  so  bulky  that  it 
took  two  nights  to  act  ?  '  Monte  Cristo '  was  brought 
out  as  a  play  in  two  parts,  Dec.  3  and  4,  1848;  and 
three  years  later  two  more  divisions  of  the  same  story 
were  put  on  the  stage.  Obviously  enough,  pieces  of 
this  sort  are  like  the  earlier  'Napole'on  Bonaparte,' 


72  French  Dramatists. 

not  plays,  but  panoramas  :  slices  of  the  story  serve  as 
magic-lantern  slides,  and  dissolve  one  into  another  at 
the  will  of  the  exhibiter.  Full  as  these  pieces  are  of 
life  and  bustle  and  gayety,  they  are  poor  substitutes 
for  plays,  which  depend  for  success  on  themselves,  and 
not  on  the  vague  desire  to  see  in  action  figures  which 
the  reader  has  learned  to  like  in  endless  stories.  These 
dramatizations  were  unduly  long-drawn,  naturally  prolix, 
not  to  say  garrulous.  When  his  tales  were  paid  for  by 
the  word,  when  he  was  "  writing  on  space,"  as  they  say 
in  a  newspaper  office,  Dumas  let  the  vice  of  saying  all 
there  was  to  be  said  grow  on  him.  On  the  stage,  the 
half  is  more  than  the  whole. 

Side  by  side  with  these  dramatizations,  Dumas  con- 
tinued to  bring  out  now  and  then  dramas  in  his  earlier 
manner;  for  example,  the  already  mentioned  'Alchi- 
miste'  (1839)  and  'Hamlet'  (1849),  and  also  a  'Cati- 
lina'  (1849),  likewise  in  verse,  besides  an  occasional 
play  in  prose,  including,  for  one,  an  adaptation  of  Schil- 
ler's '  Kabale  und  Liebe.'  None  of  these,  however, 
is  as  interesting  or  as  important  as  any  one  of  his  ear- 
liest four  or  five  successes.  The  only  works  of  his 
more  mature  years  which  enlarge  his  reputation  are 
his  comedies.  He  brought  to  the  making  of  comedy 
the  same  freshness,  facility,  fecundity,  and  force,  that 
he  had  brought  years  before  to  the  making  of  drama. 
After  all,  it  is  not  inexact  to  say  that  the  two  chief 
qualities  of  Dumas  were  abundance  and  ease.  Other 
writers  of  his  time  were  abundant :  none  were  so  easy. 
Contrast  his  running  sentences  with  the  tortured  style 
of  Balzac,  and  we  can  understand  how  it  was  that 
Dumas  could  write  a  volume  in  a  few  hours,  and  that 
Balzac  once  spent  a  whole  night  toiling  over  a  single 


Alexandra  Dumas.  73 

sentence.  Now,  ease  and  abundance  are  invaluable  to 
a  writer  of  comedy.  Although  the  half  a  dozen  come- 
dies Dumas  wrote  vary  in  value,  all  are  equally  facile 
and  flowing.  '  Mile,  de  Belle-Isle '  and  the  '  Demoiselles 
de  St.  Cyr '  and  the  '  Jeunesse  de  Louis  XIV '  (which 
his  son  edited  for  the  Parisian  stage  a  few  years  ago) 
are  as  simple  and  unaffected  plays  as  you  can  find ;  and 
they  are  plays  of  a  new  kind.  The  comedies  of  Dumas 
are  unlike  the  comedies  of  any  other  French  dramatist. 
They  are  as  different  from  the  more  philosophical 
comedy  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries 
as  they  are  from  the  Realistic  comedy  which  his  son 
brought  into  fashion.  They  are  a  little  like  the  best 
of  the  comedies  which  Scribe  wrote  for  the  Theatre 
Francois,  although  they  had  a  boldness  and  a  freedom 
Scribe  could  never  attain.  Perhaps,  more  than  any 
thing  else,  they  resemble  the  English  comedies  of  in- 
trigue and  adventure  imitated  from  Spanish  models, 
such  as  Gibber's  'She  Would  and  She  Would  Not.' 

In  Dumas's  plays,  however,  both  situation  and  dia- 
logue seem  less  forced,  although  it  is  unfair  ever  to 
speak  of  either  as  though  it  were  at  all  forced.  Dumas 
had  little  humor,  as  we  understand  the  word,  and  what 
he  had  was  on  the  surface ;  but  he  was  witty  without 
effort  and  without  end.  It  is  a  quality  he  seems  to 
have  discovered  after  he  had  written  his  earlier  and 
more  famous  plays ;  for  in  these  there  is  little  to  re- 
lieve the  tensity  of  emotion.  In  his  comedies,  how- 
ever, his  wit  had  a  chance  to  show  its  nimbleness. 
This  wit  is  lightsome  and  buoyant,  rather  than  pene- 
trating. It  is  not  epigrammatically  sparkling  with  a 
hard  brilliance  like  Sheridan's  and  Congreve's  ;  nor 
is  it  biting  and  vitriolic  like  his  son's  :  it  seems  less 


74  French  Dramatists. 

studied  and  mere  natural  than  either,  and  more  to  be 
compared  to  the  graceful  and  clever  wit  of  a  ready  man 
of  the  world ;  and,  as  I  have  said,  it  is  as  unfailing  as  it 
is  unforced.  I  can  recommend  a  little  comedy  in  one 
act  called  the  '  Mari  de  la  Veuve,'  and  written  during  the 
desolation  caused  by  the  cholera,  to  all  who  may  desire 
to  see  as  bright  a  little  play  as  one  could  wish.  In  his 
memoirs  Dumas  tells  us  that  the  primary  idea  of  this 
tiny  piece  was  one  friend's,  and  that  the  development 
and  construction  were  another's,  and  that  all  he  did 
was  to  take  their  plan,  and  write  the  dialogue.  But  it 
was  dialogue  such  as  none  but  he  could  write. 

This  very  play  contains  an  admirable  instance  of  his 
tact  in  turning  a  difficulty.  A  husband  has  written  to 
his  wife  bidding  her  to  announce  his  death,  for  reasons 
not  given  but  imperative.  It  is  from  the  false  position 
thus  created  for  the  wife,  who  is  supposed  to  be  a 
widow,  that  the  comedy  is  evolved.  Shortly  after  the 
rise  of  the  curtain,  the  husbancj  appears,  but  too  much 
in  a  hurry  to  explain  why  he  has  had  to  conceal  his 
existence.  At  the  end  of  the  play  even,  he  had  not 
yet  told ;  then,  when  all  is  attention,  the  servant  an- 
nounces the  notary  to  draw  up  the  contract  for  the 
marriage  which  brings  every  comedy  to  a  happy  end. 
Interrupted,  the  husband  says,  "  I  will  tell  you  all  about 
it  to-morrow."  And  the  curtain  falls,  leaving  the  spec- 
tator amused  and  entertained,  but  still  in  ignorance 
why  the  husband  found  it  necessary  to  give  out  his 
own  death.  I  am  inclined  to  surmise  that  the  pair  of 
collaborators  who  planned  the  play  devised  a  reason  for 
this,  and  that  Dumas  found  this  reason  insufficient. 
Not  having  time  to  concoct  another,  he  made  the  diffi- 
culty disappear  by  not  giving  any  reason  at  all. 


Alexandre  Dumas.  75 

From  the  sombre  '  Antony '  to  the  laughing  '  Mari 
de  la  Veuve '  is  a  long  stride ;  but  Dumas  took  it  with- 
out straining ;  and  many  another  beside.  Even  more 
remarkable  than  the  range  of  Dumas's  work  is  its  gen- 
eral level  of  merit.  He  had,  at  least,  one  element  of 
greatness, — an  inexhaustible  fecundity.  More  than 
this ;  when  we  consider  the  quantity  of  his  dramas,  the 
quality  of  the  best  of  them  seems  singularly  high. 
There  is  but  one  dramatist  of  his  generation  who  will 
stand  comparison  with  him  ;  and  even  Victor  Hugo, 
master  as  he  is  of  many  things,  is  less  a  master  of  the 
theatre  than  Dumas.  He  was  the  superior  of  Dumas 
in  that  he  was  a  poet,  and  had  style,  as  Dumas  was 
willing  to  confess.  But  for  success  on  the  stage, 
poetry  and  style  are  not  so  potent  as  other  qualities 
which  Dumas  had  more  abundantly  than  Hugo.  He 
had  an  easy  wit  which  Hugo  lacked,  and  which  is  of 
inestimable  service  to  the  playmaker.  He  had  a  flexi- 
bility of  manner  to  which  Hugo  could  not  pretend. 
We  have  seen  how  many  different  kinds  of  dramas 
Dumas  attempted,  while  all  Hugo's  pieces  are  cast  in 
the  same  mould.  As  Heine  said,  "Dumas  is  not  so 
great  a  poet  as  Victor  Hugo ;  but  he  possesses  gifts 
which  in  the  drama  enable  him  to  achieve  far  greater 
results  than  the  latter.  He  has  perfect  command  of 
that  forcible  expression  of  passion  which  the  French 
term  verve ;  and  he  is,  withal,  more  of  a  Frenchman 
than  Victor  Hugo  is."  Elsewhere  Heine  credits  Hugo 
with  a  Teutonic  want  of  tact,  and  suggests  that  his 
muse  had  two  left  hands.  Now  Dumas's  muse  had  a 
right  hand,  and  it  never  forgot  its  cunning.  Dumas's 
dramas,  extravagant  as  some  of  them  are,  strike  one  as 
more  natural  than  Hugo's,  perhaps  because  the  latter 


76  French  Dramatists. 

reveal  too  openly  the  constraint  of  their  construction, 
which  the  former  never  do.  Dumas  was  frank  to  praise 
Hugo,  and  to  acknowledge  his  own  indebtedness  to 
him ;  yet  he  spoke  his  mind  freely  about  his  competitor. 
He  is  reported  as  saying  that  "  each  had  our  own  good 
points ;  but  mine  were  better.  Hugo  was  lyrical  and 
theatrical :  I  was  dramatic.  Hugo,  to  be  effective,  could 
not  do  without  contrasting  drinking-songs  with  church 
hymns,  and  setting  tables  laden  with  flowers  and  flasks 
by  the  side  of  coffins  draped  in  black.  All  I  wanted 
was  four  scenes,  four  boards,  two  actors,  and  a  passion." 
It  is  easy  to  smile  at  this  as  mere  vanity  and  vexation 
of  spirit ;  but,  magniloquence  apart,  it  is  sound  criti- 
cism nevertheless. 

Like  Hugo,  Dumas  was  the  son  of  a  revolutionary 
general,  and  both  were  as  militant  in  literature  as  their 
fathers  had  been  in  life.  From  his  father,  Dumas 
inherited  little  but  the  physical  force  which  sustained 
him  in  his  reckless  waste  of  energy,  and  which  helped 
to  give  him  the  abundant  confidence  in  himself :  these 
two  things  indeed,  strength  and  confidence,  are  at 
the  bottom  of  his  career  of  marvellous  prodigality.  It 
was  confidence  and  strength  combined  which  made 
possible  his  unhasting,  unresting  life  of  toil  in  so  many 
departments  of  literature.  This  life  is  in  many  re- 
spects a  warning,  rather  than  an  example.  With  his 
great  powers  one  feels  he  ought  to  have  done  something 
higher  and  nobler  :  that  he  had  great  powers,  admits  of 
no  cavil.  The  present  M.  Alexandre  Dumas,  who  is  as 
restrained  as  his  father  was  exuberant,  and  who  looked 
on  his  father  as  a  sort  of  prodigal  son,  upholds  the 
honor  of  the  family,  and  pushes  filial  reverence  to  the 
extreme  verge  of  extravagance ;  yet,  due  allowance 


Alexandre  Dumas.  77 

made,  he  is  not  so  very  far  out  when  he  speaks  of  his 
father  as  "  he  who  was  and  is  the  master  of  the  modern 
stage,  whatever  noise  may  be  made  about  other  names, 
he  whose  prodigious  imagination  touched  the  four  car- 
dinal points  of  our  art,  —  tragedy,  historical  drama, 
the  drama  of  manners,  and  the  comedy  of  anecdote  ;  he 
whose  only  fault  was  to  lack  solemnity,  and  to  have 
genius  without  pride,  and  fecundity  without  effort,  as 
he  had  youth  and  health ;  he  who,  to  conclude,  Shak- 
spere  being  taken  as  the  culminating  point,  by  inven- 
tion, power,  and  variety  approached  among  us  most 
closely  to  Shakspere." 


CHAPTER    IV. 

EUGENE   SCRIBE. 

CARLYLE  speaks  of  Diderot  as  "successful  in  criti 
cism,  successful  in  philosophism,  nay,  highest  of  sub- 
lunary glories,  successful  in  the  theatre."  Accepting 
this  last  dictum,  we  may  venture  the  assertion  that  no 
writer  ever  enjoyed  so  much  of  the  highest  of  sublunary 
glories  as  Eugene  Scribe ;  for  no  maker  of  plays,  either 
before  or  since,  was  ever  so  uniformly  successful,  and 
over  so  wide  an  area.  ^Eschylus  and  Aristophanes  did 
not  always  get  the  prize  they  strove  for ;  and  even 
when  they  did  triumph,  their  fame  was  limited  to  their 
own  city,  or  at  most  to  Greece  and  its  chain  of  colonies. 
Scribe's  luck  rarely  failed  him ;  and  his  best  pieces  were 
carried,  not  only  all  over  France,  but  around  the  world. 
His  fertility  was  as  unfailing  as  his  good  fortune.  The 
output  of  his  fiction-factory  is  enormous.  In  the  year 
1823  alone,  he  brought  out  nearly  a  score  of  plays.  In 
the  half-century  of  his  incessant  production  he  wrote 
more  than  four  hundred  dramatic  pieces,  of  one  kind  or 
another,  beside  a  dozen  or  more  novels.  In  bulk  his 
work  is  barely  equalled  by  Lope  de  Vega's,  or  by 
Hardy's,  by  De  Foe's,  or  by  Voltaire's,  or,  in  our  own 
day,  by  the  elder  Dumas's.  His  complete  works  are 
now  in  course  of  publication.  Sixty  closely-printed 
volumes,  of  some  four  hundred  pages  each,  have  already 
appeared ;  and  the  end  is  not  yet.  He  began  life  with 
a  trifling  patrimony.  By  his  pen  he  made  sometimes  as 
78 


Eugene  Scribe.  79 

much  as  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs  a  year 
For  the  one  long  novel  he  wrote  for  serial  publication 
in  a  newspaper,  he  received  sixty  thousand  francs ;  and 
when  he  died  he  left  a  fortune  of  quite  two  millions 
of  francs.  To  these  material  gains,  there  was  added 
the  honor  of  a  seat  among  the  illustrious  forty  of  the 
French  Academy. 

Born  in  1791,  Scribe  began  to  write  for  the  stage 
before  he  was  twenty.  Like  many  another  dramatist, 
he  was  intended  for  the  law,  before  his  success  on  the 
stage  justified  his  giving  up  the  bar.  Like  many 
another  dramatist,  moreover,  his  earlier  dramatic  at- 
tempts proved  failures.  If  we  may  credit  M.  Ernest 
Legouve*,  his  fellow-craftsman  and  sometime  literary 
partner,  Scribe  saw  fourteen  of  his  plays  miss  fire 
before  he  made  his  first  hit.  Then,  turning  from  the 
servile  imitation  of  Picard  and  Duval,  he  began  to  look 
at  the  life  around  him,  and  determined  to  place  on  the 
stage  the  petty  foibles  of  the  day.  His  first  attempt 
at  what  an  American  dramatist  has  called  "  contempo- 
raneous human  interest "  was  '  Une  Nuit  de  la  Garde 
Nationale,'  a  vaudeville  in  one  act,  brought  out  in  1816. 
It  attracted  instant  attention.  The  citizen-soldiers  it 
made  fun  of  chose  to  take  offence.  There  was  much 
bluster,  and  some  talk  of  a  challenge  to  mortal  com- 
bat. The  piece,  in  the  mean  time,  set  everybody  laugh- 
ing ;  and  Scribe  saw,  that,  after  prospecting  vainly,  he 
had  found  at  last  the  lead  he  could  work  to  advantage. 

The  vaudeville,  when  Scribe  took  it  up,  was  in  a 
middle  stage  of  its  long  evolution.  Originally  it  had 
been  a  sort  of  satirical  ballad,  or  a  string  of  epigrams, 
telling  pointedly  an  anecdote  of  the  hour,  or  girding 
sharply  at  an  unpopular  official  or  favorite.  This 


8o  French  Dramatists. 

is   the   vaudeville   whereof    Boileau    speaks   when    he 
says,  — 

"  Le  Frangais,  lie*  malin,  forma  le  vaudeville." 

About  the  beginning  of  the  last  century  this  versi- 
fied anecdote  came  to  be  cast  into  dialogue,  and  sung 
in  public,  appropriate  action  aiding.  For  the  theatre 
in  the  fair  first,  and  afterward  for  the  Italian  come- 
dians, Lesage  and  Piron  wrote  vaudevilles  of  this  type, 
rudimentary  plays,  the  words  of  which  were  all  in 
rhyme,  ready  for  the  vocalists.  By  the  end  of  the 
century  the  vaudeville  had  got  a  little  more  dramatic 
consistence,  remaining,  however,  either  the  parody  of  a 
play  or  opera  popular  at  another  theatre,  or  a  brief 
and  brisk  setting  on  the  stage  of  an  anecdote.  Such 
it  was  when  Scribe  began  to  write,  and  to  him  was  due 
its  final  transformation.  First  he  freshened  it,  as  we 
have  seen,  by  attacking  the  follies  and  the  fashions  of 
the  day ;  then,  as  soon  as  he  felt  himself  secure,  he 
broadened  its  scope.  The  versified  anecdote,  dramatic 
only  by  courtesy,  gave  place  to  a  complete  play,  which, 
slight  as  it  might  be,  had  a  beginning,  a  middle,  and  an 
end.  Traces  of  the  old  form  survived  in  the  frequent 
sets  of  verses  written  to  well-known  airs,  and  almost 
meant  to  be  said  rather  than  sung.  In  these  couplets, 
as  the  snatches  of  song  were  called,  were  put  the 
special  points  of  the  dialogue  and  the  best  jests.  But 
in  Scribe's  hands  reliance  was  had  on  the  situation, 
rather  than  on  the  dialogue.  For  the  first  time  a 
vaudeville  was  seen  with  an  imbroglio  as  involved  and 
as  full  of  comic  uncertainty  as  might  have  sufficed 
hitherto  for  a  play  of  far  greater  pretensions. 

In   1820,  four  years  after  Scribe's  first  success,  M. 


Eugene  Scribe.  81 

Poirson,  his  collaborator  in  that  play,  opened  the 
Gymnase  Theatre,  and  at  once  bound  Scribe  by  con- 
tract not  to  write  for  any  rival  house  for  the  space  of 
ten  years.  This  is  the  decade  of  Scribe's  most  copious 
production.  Aided  by  a  host  of  collaborators,  he 
brought  out  at  the  Gymnase  a  hundred  and  fifty  pieces, 
nearly  all  of  them  vaudevilles.  Sure  of  his  public, 
Scribe  gave  the  vaudeville  still  greater  extension. 
From  one  act  he  enlarged  it  often  to  two,  and  at  times 
to  three  acts.  From  a  merely  jocular  and  hasty  rep- 
resentation of  scenes  from  every-day  life,  he  raised  it 
now  into  comedy,  and  again  into  drama.  As  he  trust- 
ed more  and  more  to  his  plot,  to  the  situations  which 
his  wondrous  constructive  skill  enabled  him  to  present 
to  the  best  advantage,  the  couplets,  although  still  re- 
tained, became  of  less  and  less  importance  :  they  could 
even  be  omitted  without  great  loss.  In  at  least  one 
case  this  was  done.  Scribe  had  written  a  vaudeville 
in  one  act  for  the  Gymnase,  intending  the  chief  part 
for  Leontine  Fay,  who,  however,  fell  sick  before  the 
piece  was  put  in  rehearsal.  The  author  cut  out  the 
couplets,  and  cut  up  the  play  into  three  acts,  changing 
but  one  line  of  his  original  prose  in  so  doing.  Then 
he  took  'Valerie,'  a  comedy  in  three  acts,  to  the 
Thdatre  Frangais,  where  it  was  accepted  at  once,  and 
where  Mademoiselle  Mars  acted  the  blind  heroine  with 
her  usual  graceful  perfection.  This  anecdote  shows 
how  the  vaudeville  had  grown  in  Scribe's  hands.  A 
vaudeville  which  a  skilful  touch  or  two  will  turn  into  a 
comedy  fit  for  the  Comedie-Frangaise  is  very  far  from 
the  vaudeville  which  is  only  a  hastily  dramatized  anec- 
dote. Of  this  com^die-vaudeville,  then,  Scribe  was 
really  the  inventor,  as  well  as  its  most  industrious 
maker. 


82  French  Dramatists. 

The  new  comedies-vaudevilles  varied  in  range  from 
pretty  and  semi-sentimental  comedy,  like  '  Valerie,'  to 
light  farce,  like  the  'InteYieur  d'un  Bureau.'  As  fast 
as  they  appeared  in  Paris,  they  were  adapted  to  the 
London  market  by  Planch6,  Dance,  Poole,  or  Charles 
Mathews  the  younger.  As  typical  as  any  is  'Zoe,  ou 
1'amant  preteV  which  Planch6  turned  into  the  'Loan 
of  a  Lover.'  Those  who  recall  that  well-worn  little 
comedy  can  form  a  not  unfair  idea  of  the  hundred 
other  plays  of  its  kind  which  Scribe  wrote  for  the 
Gymnase.  Those  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  com- 
pare the  English  play  with  the  French  will  see  that 
the  adaptation  is  a  better  bit  of  work  than  the  original. 
Planche,  having  a  story  ready  to  his  hand,  could  spend 
time  and  give  thought  to  the  consistency  and  coher- 
ence of  the  characters  who  were  to  take  part  in  it. 
To  Scribe  the  situations  were  of  first  importance ;  and 
no  more  strength  was  imparted  to  the  characters  than 
was  needed  to  get  them  through  the  ingenious  intrigue. 
There  is  a  sharp  contrast  between  the  innate  and 
carefully  cultivated  tact  with  which  Scribe  handled 
the  succeeding  situations  of  these  lively  little  dramas, 
and  the  careless  way  he  set  on  their  legs  the  people 
whom  he  was  to  guide  through  the  labyrinth. 

I  do  not  pretend  to  have  read  all  of  Scribe's  four 
hundred  and  more  dramatic  pieces,  or  even  the  half 
of  them  ;  but  I  have  read  or  seen  acted  all  those  which 
the  consensus  of  criticism  has  indicated  as  the  most 
typical  and  the  best ;  and  in  all  these  plays  I  can  re- 
call only  one  single  character  thoroughly  thought  out 
and  wrought  out,  breathing  the  breath  of  life,  and 
moving  of  its  own  will.  By  an  effort  of  memory  I 
can  call  up  a  crowd  of  pretty  faces  with  a  strong  family 


Eugene  Scribe.  83 

likeness,  or  a  lot  of  young  gentlemen  who  have  got 
themselves  into  a  most  unpleasant  scrape.  But  that  is 
all.  The  people  who  pass  through  these  plays  are 
merely  profiles  :  they  are  like  the  plane  of  the  geo- 
metricians, —  without  thickness  and  impalpable.  Scribe 
had  some  knowledge  of  human  nature,  but  it  was  only 
skin  deep.  He  had  insight  enough ;  but  it  went  just 
below  the  surface,  and  no  further.  Now,  nothing  is 
more  temporary  than  superficial  human  nature.  Scribe 
never  got  behind  the  man  of  the  time  to  find  man  as 
he  is  at  all  times.  His  characters  are  silhouettes,  into 
which  the  scissors  have  cut  also  the  date.  The  fif- 
teen years  of  the  Restoration  were  the  years  when 
Scribe  wrote  the  most  of  his  com6dies-vaudevilles,  and 
it  does  not  need  the  titlepage  to  tell  us  that  they 
were  acted  before  1830.  Scribe  had  looked  around 
him,  and  seen  the  mighty  industrial  progress  of  France, 
freed  at  last  from  the  bondage  of  the  old  Bourbon 
rule,  from  the  uneasiness  and  ferment  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, and  from  the  military  strain  of  the  Empire.  Sick 
of  martial  glory,  all  France  was  trying  to  make  money ; 
and  yet  in  picturesque  juxtaposition  to  the  new  brood 
of  bankers  and  merchants  and  manufacturers,  stood  the 
survivors  of  the  Empire  and  the  Revolution.  So  these 
comedies-vaudevilles  are  full  of  old  soldiers,  sergeants, 
and  colonels  and  generals,  all  singing  bits  of  verse  in 
which  guerriers  rhymes  with  lauriers ;  and  in  contrast 
with  these  are  the  money-makers,  and  the  usual  young 
men  and  pretty  dolls  of  women,  more  or  less  witty  and 
wicked.  By  dint  of  off-hand  sketching  of  these  as  they 
floated  by  on  the  current  of  middle-class  society,  Scribe 
had  made  for  himself  a  full  set  of  the  personages  which 
might  be  needed  in  any  com6die-vaudeville ;  and,  having 


84  French  Dramatists. 

once  got  a  stock  of  these  figures,  he  used  them  again 
and  again,  much  as  the  deviser  of  one  of  the  old  Italian 
corn-media  deW  arte  used  the  pedant  and  Brighetta,  the 
captain  and  the  doctor,  and  the  rest  of  the  instantly 
recognizable  masks. 

A  comparison,  not  without  interest,  might  be  insti- 
tuted between  the  com6die-vaudeville  of  Scribe  and 
the  commedia  dell'  arte  as  it  became  naturalized  in 
France  by  the  harlequin  Dominique  and  his  fellows, 
the  friends  of  Moliere.  In  each  case,  it  was  especially 
the  amusement  of  the  people  of  Paris,  of  the  shop- 
keeping  class  above  all ;  and,  as  I  have  said  already, 
in  each  case,  characters  and  dialogue  were  of  less  im- 
portance than  plot  and  situation.  The  fecundity  of 
Scribe  in  providing  new  subjects  far  surpassed  that  of 
his  Italian  predecessors.  Goethe  told  Eckermann  that 
Gozzi  said  that  there  were  only  thirty-six  tragic  situa- 
tions, and  added  that  Schiller  had  thought  there  were 
more,  but  could  never  succeed  in  finding  even  so  many. 
Granting  that  the  comic  situations  outnumber  the 
tragic,  there  must  be  an  end  to  them  at  length ;  yet 
Scribe  seemed  inexhaustible.  When  one  turns  out 
from  ten  to  twenty  new  plays  every  year  for  ten  years, 
there  must  be  some  repetition,  some  use  of  stale  mat- 
ter, some  attempt  at  a  rtchauffte.  But  France  is  not 
a  country  with  ten  religions  and  only  one  sauce ;  and 
a  French  play-maker,  if  he  be  as  skilful  as  Scribe,  can 
serve  you  over  again  any  old  drama  with  a  new  dress- 
ing, so  deftly  disguised  that  you  would  scarce  know  it. 
Scribe  took  suggestions  everywhere.  From  Marryat 
he  borrowed  'Japhet  in  Search  of  a  Father;'  from 
Mrs.  Inchbald,  '  A  Simple  Story ; '  from  Hertz,  the 
lovely  '  King  Renews  Daughter ; '  and  from  Cooper's 


Eugene  Scribe.  85 

*  Lionel  Lincoln  '  he  got  the  germ  of  the  '  Bohemienne, 
ou  1'Ame'rique  en  1775,'  a  highly  comic  drama  of  our 
Revolution,  which  might  have  been  adapted  to  advan- 
tage during  the  centennial  excitement.  Scribe  was 
fond  also  of  doing  over  again  in  his  more  modern 
manner  some  of  the  masterpieces  of  the  past ;  and  so 
we  have  the  'Nouveaux  Jeux  de  1'Amour  et  du  Ha- 
sard  '  and  the  '  Nouveau  Pourceaugnac  : '  even  Moliere 
did  not  scare  him.  Then,  too,  he  did  his  own  plays 
over  again.  M.  Legouv6  tell  us  that  he  quite  forgot 
his  own  work  sometimes,  and  would  sit  and  listen  to 
it,  criticising  it  freely,  without  recalling  it  as  his  own. 
And  I  have  seen  somewhere  an  anecdote  of  his  saying, 
as  the  curtain  fell  on  a  piece  which  was  an  obvious  fail- 
ure, "  No  matter :  I  will  do  it  again  next  year."  He 
did  over  not  only  his  own  failures,  but  those  of  other 
dramatists,  when  they  bungled  a  good  idea. 

Beside  all  his  borrowing  from  himself  and  from 
others,  borrowing  in  which  there  was  no  deceit  or 
dishonesty,  —  a  more  straightforward  and  upright  man 
than  Scribe  never  lived, — he  had  the  assistance  of 
the  crowd  of  collaborators  who  encompassed  him 
about.  Scarce  a  tithe  of  his  earlier  plays  were  written 
by  Scribe  alone.  First  and  last  he  must  have  had 
half  a  hundred  collaborators,  most  of  them  unknown 
now  out  of  France,  and  well-nigh  forgotten  even  there. 
Not  a  few  were  men  of  mark  on  the  French  stage  at 
that  time.  Three  or  four  may  be  known  to  the  world 
at  large  :  Saintine,  for  instance,  the  author  of  '  Picciola ; ' 
and  Bayard,  the  author  of  the  '  Gamin  de  Paris ; '  and 
Saint-Georges,  the  author  of  the  libretto  of  '  Martha ' 
and  of  many  another  opera ;  and  M.  Legouv6,  the 
author  of  'Med£e.'  So  many  were  his  partners,  that 


86  French  Dramatists. 

he  was  accused  of  keeping  a  play-factory,  under  the 
style  of  Scribe  &  Co.,  just  as  Dumas  had  been  charged 
with  keeping  a  novel-factory.  But  Scribe's  treatment 
of  his  collaborators  was  in  marked  contrast  with 
Dumas's.  Scribe  always  did  more  than  his  share  of 
the  work,  and  was  ready  to  give  them  more  than  their 
share  of  the  credit.  He  never  tried  to  grasp  all  the 
gold  or  the  glory  for  himself. 

His  collaborators  remained  his  friends,  every  one  of 
them  ;  and  it  was  to  them  collectively  that  he  dedicated 
the  complete  edition  of  his  plays.  One  brought  him  a 
suggestion,  another  a  plot  in  detail,  a  third  a  few  coup- 
lets :  whatever  the  share  in  the  work,  they  were  always 
named  in  the  bill  of  the  play,  and  on  the  titlepage,  and 
they  always  drew  a  proportion  in  the  profits.  The 
most  of  the  labor  was  always  Scribe's  ;  and  sometimes 
the  contribution  of  the  partner  was  so  slight  that  he 
could  not  point  it  out.  M.  Dupin  once  brought  Scribe 
an  ill-made  two-act  vaudeville,  from  which,  however, 
Scribe  got  a  suggestion  that  he  immediately  worked 
over  into  a  one-act  play  of  his  own,  '  Michel  et  Chris- 
tine.' To  the  first  performance  he  invited  Dupin,  who 
never  knew  he  was  seeing  his  own  piece  until  it  had 
succeeded,  and  the  chief  actor  had  announced  as  its 
authors  MM.  Scribe  and  Dupin.  Again :  M.  Cornu 
came  up  from  the  country  with  a  bag  full  of  melo- 
dramas, one  of  which  he  begged  Scribe  to  glance  at. 
When  he  next  called,  months  afterward,  Scribe  asked 
him  if  he  had  time  to  listen  to  a  play.  M.  Cornu  was 
pleased  with  the  compliment,  pleased  with  the  vaude- 
ville Scribe  read,  and  astonished  as  well  as  pleased 
when  told  that  he  was  its  author.  "  I  found  an  idea 
in  your  melodrama,"  said  Scribe:  "to  me  an  idea  is 


Eugene  Scribe.  87 

enough."  So  on  its  titlepage  the  '  Chanoinesse  '  de- 
clares itself  to  be  by  MM.  Scribe  and  Cornu.  M. 
Dupin  had  not  written  a  line  of  one  play,  nor  M.  Cornu 
of  the  other,  nor  had  they  even  recognized  their  ideas 
in  Scribe's  work ;  yet  he  acknowledged  his  obligation 
to  them,  and  shared  his  profits  with  them.  In  1822 
M.  de  Saint-Georges  brought  him  a  piece  turning  on  a 
game  of  lansquenet.  "  You  have  lost  your  labor,"  said 
Scribe ;  "  your  play  is  impossible.  If  you  want  to 
make  dramatic  use  of  a  game  of  cards,  you  must 
choose  a  game  familiar  to  play-goers  now,  —  6cart6,  for 
example."  And  then  he  went  on  showing  how  such  a 
play  might  be  written,  what  its  plot  might  be,  and 
what  might  be  done  and  said.  When  he  paused, 
Saint-Georges  suggested  that  he  had  just  sketched  a 
play,  only  needing  to  be  written  out.  "  So  I  have !  " 
said  Scribe,  smiling;  and  in  November,  1822,  there 
was  acted  at  the  Gymnase  a  vaudeville  called  '  Ecarte,' 
by  MM.  Scribe  and  Saint-Georges.  Now,  M.  Saint- 
Georges  had  contributed  nothing  whatever  to  the 
piece ;  but  as  his  play  had  been  the  cause  of  the  talk 
out  of  which  '  Ecarte" '  sprang,  Scribe  chose  to  consider 
him  as  a  collaborator.  Surely  delicacy  can  go  no  far- 
ther than  this. 

Perhaps  the  making  of  a  vaudeville  like  '  Michel  et 
Christine,'  or  the  '  Chanoinesse,'  or  '  Ecarte,'  was  such 
an  easy  thing  to  Scribe  that  he  held  it  lightly,  al- 
though it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  he  shared  the 
substantial  profits  of  the  play  as  well  as  the  more 
immaterial  honor.  When  however  he  took  a  higher 
flight,  and  rose  from  the  come"die-vaudeville,  never 
longer  than  three  acts,  to  the  full-length  five-act  com- 
edy of  manners,  meant  for  the  Theatre  Franc_ais,  he 


88  French  Dramatists. 

renounced  all  outside  aid,  and  relied  on  himself  alone. 
The  only  fault  his  collaborators  had  ever  found  with 
him  was  his  insisting  on  doing  more  than  his  share  of 
the  work.  When  he  began  to  write  for  the  Come"die- 
Fran^aise  he  cast  them  aside  altogether,  and  did  all 
the  work.  Dumas,  whose  assistants  were  as  many, 
but  not  as  loyally  treated,  as  Scribe's,  once  defended 
himself  over  Scribe's  shoulders,  and  declared  that  col- 
laboration is  a  hindrance,  and  not  a  help.  When  Scribe 
was  received  at  the  French  Academy,  one  of  his  dis- 
satisfied colleagues  is  said  to  have  murmured,  "  It  is 
not  a  chair  we  should  give  him,  but  a  bench  to  seat 
all  his  collaborators."  And  there  were  not  wanting 
those  who  insinuated  that  his  literary  partners  sup- 
plied all  the  ideas,  and  deserved  all  the  credit.  On 
these  he  turned  the  tables  by  doing  alone  and  unaided 
his  most  important,  and  in  many  respects  his  best 
work. 

Fifty  years  ago  the  Theatre  Francois,  owing  to  the 
strict  division  of  styles  among  the  theatres  of  Paris, 
and  the  reservation  to  it  of  the  masterpieces  of  classic 
tragedy  and  comedy,  was  an  institution  more  august 
and  of  higher  dignity  than  it  is  even  now.  Scribe, 
broken  to  every  ruse  and  wile  of  theatrical  effect  by 
the  experience  gained  in  a  hundred  plays,  and  speaking 
on  the  stage  as  one  having  authority,  turned  from  the 
Gymnase  (though  without  wholly  giving  up  the  com^die- 
vaudeville),  and  brought  out  at  the  Theatre  Francois  a 
series  of  comedies  of  higher  pretensions.  Valdrie  was 
produced  by  the  Come'die-Franc.aise  in  1822,  half  by 
accident,  as  we  have  seen.  Five  years  later,  in  the 
midst  of  his  incessant  production  at  the  Gymnase,  he 
brought  out  at  the  Theatre  Fran^ais  his  first  five-act 


Eugene  Scribe.  89 

comedy,  the  'Manage  d' Argent.'  It  failed.  "Here, 
at  last,"  said  Villemain,  when  receiving  Scribe  into 
the  French  Academy,  "  is  a  complete  comedy,  without 
couplets,  without  collaborators,  sustaining  itself  by  its 
dramatic  complexity,  by  the  unity  of  its  characters, 
by  the  truth  of  the  dialogue,  and  by  the  vivacity  of 
its  moral."  But  at  first  the  old  play-goers,  who  were 
wont  to  meet  in  the  house  of  Moliere,  keen  to  protect 
its  traditions,  would  not  hear  of  Scribe's  comedy.  It 
was  the  work  of  a  vaudevillist  only  too  obviously,  they 
said ;  and  they  sent  him  back  to  his  couplets  and  his 
collaborators.  Though  the  piece  failed  in  Paris,  it  suc- 
ceeded amply  in  the  provinces. 

Soon  the  Theatre  Fran^ais  was  bearing  the  brunt 
of  the  Romanticist  onslaught  ;  and  soon  a  more  mate- 
rial revolution  overthrew  the  Bourbon  throne.  Scribe 
was  the  only  French  dramatist  of  prominence  who 
took  no  part  in  the  struggle  between  the  Romanticists 
and  the  Classicists,  who  went  quietly  on  in  his  own 
way,  and  who  held  his  public  as  firmly  after  the  suc- 
cess of  '  Antony '  and  '  Hernani '  as  before  the  publica- 
tion of  the  preface  to  '  Cromwell.'  But  the  revolution 
of  July  affected  him  more  closely.  The  Gymnase  had 
been  called  the  "Theatre  de  Madame,"  and  on  the 
withdrawal  of  the  princely  protection  its  future  seemed 
less  favorable.  Besides,  the  turn  of  the  political  wheel 
had  brought  into  view  subjects  for  which  the  stage  of 
the  Gymnase  was  too  small.  So  Scribe  went  to  the 
Theatre  Fran^ais  again,  and  '  Bertrand  et  Raton,  ou 
1'Art  de  Conspirer,'  was  acted  there  in  November,  1833, 
nearly  six  years  after  the  check  of  the  'Mariage 
d' Argent.'  In  the  next  fifteen  years,  seven  other  five- 
act  comedies,  written  by  Scribe  alone,  were  acted  by 


go  FrencJi  Dramatists. 

the  Comedie-Frangaise  :  the  'Ambitieux'  (1834),  the 
'Camaraderie,  ou  la  Courte  Echelle'  (1837);  the 
'Calomnie'  and  the  'Verre  d'Eau,  on  les  Effets  et  les 
Causes'  (1840);  'Une  Chalne'  (1841);  the  '  Fils  de 
Cromwell,  ou  une  Restauration  '  (1842) ;  and  the  'Puff, 
ou  Mensonge  et  Verit6'  (1848).  These  comedies,  not- 
withstanding their  well-jointed  skeletons,  are  already 
aging  terribly ;  they  show  the  wrinkles  of  time :  even 
the  young  lovers  are  now  gray-haired,  and  the  language 
is  hopelessly  rococo.  The  taste  for  sub-titles  has  died 
out,  and  some  of  Scribe's  seem  very  ridiculous  now. 

His  fancy  for  reflecting  fully  the  changing  hues  of 
the  hour  has  given  his  plays  a  color  now  faded  and  out 
of  fashion  forever.  What  is  contemporary  is  three 
parts  temporary.  Language,  for  one  thing,  is  always 
shifting.  A  far-seeing  literary  artist  borrows  only  as 
many  phrases  from  the  jargon  of  the  day  as  he  may 
need  to  give  life  to  his  dialogue,  and  never  enough  to 
weight  that  dialogue  down  with  dead  words  after  they 
have  dropped  out  of  use.  Scribe's  subordination  of 
every  thing  to  the  demands  of  an  immediate  stage- 
success  makes  most  of  his  dialogue  now  lifeless  and 
wooden.  And  unfortunately,  though  Scribe  had  a  very 
pretty  wit  of  his  own,  and  was  capable  of  writing  dia- 
logue of  no  little  sparkle,  he  was  never  above  making 
use  of  the  ready-made  jests,  the  commonplaces  of 
joking.  Theophile  Gautier,  to  whom  picturesqueness 
was  the  whole  duty  of  man,  somewhere  says,  that, 
after  a  witticism  had  been  worn  threadbare  by  hard 
usage,  it  was  still  sure  of  a  freshening-up  in  some  one 
of  Scribe's  plays.  Here  again  we  see  Scribe's  knowl- 
edge of  the  play-goer :  if  he  made  the  new  jest  he 
was  so  well  capable  of  making,  perhaps  the  public 


Eugene  Scribe.  91 

might  not  see  it ;  but  if  he  used  the  old  joke,  the  public 
could  but  laugh.  On  the  same  principle,  the  clown  in 
the  circus  gives  us  the  most  obvious  and  antique  wit ; 
and  the  people  needs  must  laugh  at  it,  just  as  Diggory 
had  been  laughing  at  the  story  of  the  grouse  in  the 
gun-room  these  twenty  years.  Taught  by  his  experi- 
ence as  a  playwright,  Scribe  distrusted  his  own  higher 
powers,  assuredly  capable  of  further  development,  and 
chose  instead  to  rely  on  his  well-tried,  and  indeed  truly 
wondrous,  constructive  skill. 

To  consider  in  detail  the  comedies  acted  at  the 
Theatre  Frangais  would  take  too  long.  '  Valerie  '  is, 
no  doubt,  much  improved  by  the  cutting  out  of  its 
couplets :  it  is  a  simple  and  touching  little  story,  lack- 
ing only  in  depth  and  pathos,  in  the  one  touch  of 
nature.  It  is  made,  not  born  ;  and  there  is  no  blood  in 
it.  The  '  Mariage  d' Argent '  seems  to  me  the  least 
satisfactory  in  structure  of  Scribe's  long  plays,  and  I 
do  not  wonder  it  failed.  The  subject  might  suffice 
for  a  come'die-vaudeville  in  three  acts ;  and  the  strain 
of  stretching  it  into  a  five-act  comedy  is  unfortunately 
only  too  evident.  But  in  'Bertrand  et  Raton'  is  a 
great  improvement :  for  the  first  time  Scribe  strikes 
the  true  note  of  high  comedy.  All  the  characters  are 
cast  in  worn  moulds,  and  have  no  sharpness  of  edge, 
save  Bertrand,  the  incarnation  of  the  ultimate  diplo- 
macy. Here  is  real  observation  and  the  real  comic 
touch.  In  Bertrand  the  world  chose  to  see  a  portrait 
of  Talleyrand,  then  ambassador  to  England ;  and  when 
the  play  was  acted  in  London,  Mr.  Farren  wore  a  wig, 
which  made  him  the  image  of  Talleyrand.  To  the 
horror  of  the  English  authorities,  the  French  ambassa- 
dor came  to  the  play  ;  but  with  characteristic  shrewd- 


92  French  Dramatists. 

ness  he  refused  to  see  the  likeness,  and  led  in  applause 
of  the  actor.  Bertrand  is  Scribe's  one  rememberable 
character.  It  leavens  the  whole  play,  of  which  the  plot 
however  is  interesting  and  possible,  and  not  without 
irony. 

What  would  the  great  writer  who  invented  Queen 
Anne  have  thought  of  the  'Verre  d'Eau,'  in  which  the 
Duchess  of  Marlborough  and  the  lady-love  of  Lieut. 
Masham  are  rivals  of  the  queen  for  the  affection  of 
that  inoffensive  young  man  ?  Scribe  takes  as  many 
liberties  with  Queen  Anne  —  who  is  dead,  as  we  all 
know,  and  has  no  Churchill  now  to  fight  her  battles  — 
as  Hugo  took  with  Queen  Mary ;  but  he  is  never  melo- 
dramatic like  Hugo.  The  emotion  is  rarely  tense  ;  and 
even  the  shock  of  surprise  evokes  no  more  startling 
ejaculation  than  "O  Heaven!"  —  a  lady-like  expletive 
which  recurs  half  a  dozen  times  in  the  play.  The 
'Verre  d'Eau,'  indeed,  is  a  very  lady-like  comedy, 
wherein  high  affairs  of  state  are  shown  to  hang  on  the 
trifles  of  feminine  feeling.  While  Scribe  has  no  enthu- 
siasm, no  poetry,  no  passion,  so  also  has  he  no  affec- 
tation, and  no  false  and  forced  emotion.  In  'Une 
Chalne,'  for  instance,  which  remains  the  most  modern 
of  Scribe's  comedies,  and  which  tells  a  familiar  tale, 
there  are  no  ardent  scenes  between  the  lover  and  the 
mistress,  and  no  dwelling  on  the  raptures  of  illicit  pas- 
sion. On  the  contrary,  the  play,  as  the  title  shows, 
turns  on  the  lover's  struggles  to  break  the  toils  that 
bind  him  to  his  enchantress.  Scribe  was  a  bourgeois,  a 
Philistine  if  you  will ;  and  he  worshipped  respectability 
with  its  thousand  gigs.  Mr.  Henry  James,  Jr.,  has 
said  that  the  grand  protagonist  of  Balzac's  '  Come'die 
Humaine '  was  the  five-franc  piece :  I  am  inclined  to 


Eugene  Scribe.  93 

think  that  money  plays  an  even  more  important  part  in 
Scribe's  plays  than  in  Balzac's  novels.  Money,  for  one 
thing,  is  eminently  respectable ;  and  Scribe  was  nothing 
if  not  respectable.  In  '  Oscar,  ou  le  Mari  qui  trompe 
sa  Femme,'  for  example,  a  three-act  comedy  done  at 
the  Theatre  Fran^ais  in  1842,  there  is  abundant  sacri- 
fice to  decorum,  though  the  subject  is  disgusting.  Out- 
wardly all  is  proper :  inwardly  it  is  of  indescribable 
indelicacy.  But  so  skilfully  has  Scribe  told  his  story, 
that  it  is  only  by  taking  thought  that  one  sees  into  it : 
we  are  hurried  so  swiftly  over  the  quaking  bog,  that  we 
scarcely  suspect  its  existence.  In  '  Une  Chaine '  the 
subject  is  commonplace  enough  now,  though  it  was  less 
so  in  Scribe's  day.  What  is  remarkable  about  it  is  not 
only  the  matter-of-fact  treatment  of  a  passionate  situa- 
tion,—  this  was  possibly  Scribe's  protest  against  the 
Romanticist  code,  which  set  passion  above  duty,  —  but 
the  curious  way  in  which  his  instinct  as  a  playwright 
had  anticipated  the  formulas  of  a  quarter  of  a  century 
later.  'Une  Chaine,'  written  in  1841  by  Scribe,  is  in 
construction  very  much  what  it  would  have  been  had  it 
been  written  by  M.  Victorien  Sardou  in  1881.  It  has 
the  external  aspects  of  a  comedy ;  but  lurking  behind 
and  half  out  of  sight  is  a  possibility  of  impending 
tragedy,  —  a  possibility  which  stiffens  the  interest  of 
the  comedy,  and  strengthens  it. 

We  try  a  play  by  a  triple  test,  —  for  plot,  for  charac- 
ter, for  dialogue.  Scribe,  who  was  a  born  playwright, 
well  knew,  what  so  many  would-be  dramatists  do  not 
know,  that  plot  alone,  if  it  be  striking  enough,  will 
suffice  to  draw  the  public.  But  he  either  ignored  or 
was  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  only  character,  that  only 
a  true  fragment  of  human  nature,  can  confer  immortal- 


94  French  Dramatists. 

ity.  Panurge  and  Sancho  Panza  and  Bardolph  and  Tar- 
tuffe  are  as  alive  to-day  as  when  they  came  into  being. 
Plot  and  situation  and  intrigue,  however  clever,  become 
stale  in  time :  we  weary  of  them,  and  they  are  forgot- 
ten. Unless  a  story  is  kept  alive  by  the  immortality 
of  character,  it  soon  gets  old-fashioned,  and  drops  out  of 
sight  till  another  generation  takes  it  up,  and  dresses  it 
anew  to  suit  the  changing  fancy.  If  it  then  fall  into 
the  hands  of  a  true  poet,  a  real  maker,  and  he  put  intc 
it  the  human  nature  it  has  hitherto  lacked,  it  has  a 
chance  of  long  life  ;  though  the  first  arranger  is  remem- 
bered only  as  having  suggested  the  story,  and  the  great 
credit  is  given  to  the  creator  of  the  character.  Thus 
Shakspere  and  Moliere  have  worked  over  the  plots  of 
the  Latin  comic  dramatists,  and  so  stamped  these  with 
their  marks,  that  no  one  has  since  dared  to  question 
their  ownership,  or  to  replevin  what,  after  all,  belonged 
to  the  public  domain.  Even  when  a  man  is  without 
this  puissant  gift  of  making  men  in  his  own  image, 
he  has  a  chance  of  immortality  if  he  be  but  sincere  and 
simple,  and  if  he  but  put  himself  into  his  work.  As 
the  saying  is,  every  man  has  one  book  in  him  :  however 
he  may  halt  in  the  delivery  of  his  message,  the  world 
will  listen  to  him  so  long  as  he  tries  to  deliver  it  in 
straightforward  fashion.  There  was  nothing  halting  or 
hesitating  in  Scribe's  manner.  He  had  practised  till  he 
could  talk  on  the  stage  better  than  any  one  else ;  but 
he  had  absolutely  nothing  to  say,  he  had  no  message 
whatsoever  to  deliver.  No  sooner  did  there  come 
to  the  front  men  like  fimile  Augier  and  the  younger 
Dumas,  who  believed  in  a  new  gospel,  and  preached  it 
heartily  and  boldly,  than  all  men  flocked  to  hear  them, 
deserting  Scribe.  There  was  even  an  audience  for  M. 


Eugene  Scribe.  95 

Sardou,  who  has  hardly  more  to  say  than  Scribe  him- 
self, but  who  is  young  enough  to  say  nothing  in  a 
style  fifty  years  younger  than  Scribe's. 

Scribe  has  left  his  impress  on  the  stage ;  but  it  is  as 
the  inventor  of  the  come"die-vaudeville,  as  the  improver 
of  grand  opera,  as  a  play-maker  of  consummate  skill, 
not  as  the  maker  of  character.  He  was  full  of  appreci- 
ation of  a  comic  situation,  and  wrung  from  it  the  last 
drop  of  amusement :  it  never  re-acted  to  the  creation  of 
a  truly  comic  character.  No  one  of  Scribe's  people  lives 
after  him.  They  were  in  outline  only,  faint  at  best,  and 
soon  faded  :  time  has  had  no  difficulty  in  rubbing  them 
out.  "  Outline  "  is  perhaps  scarcely  the  right  word : 
one  may  say,  rather,  that  they  are  pastels,  not  sketches 
in  black  and  white.  Indeed,  there  is  little  black  any- 
where in  Scribe.  He  took  a  rose-colored  view  of  life  ; 
and,  as  M.  Octave  Feuillet  pointed  out  in  the  eulogy  he 
delivered  as  Scribe's  successor  in  the  French  Academy, 
nowhere  in  all  his  plays  will  you  find  a  villain  of  the 
deepest  dye.  Few  of  his  characters  are  even  vicious : 
they  are  ridiculous  only.  We  can  laugh  at  them  with- 
out any  feeling  that  we  ought,  perhaps,  to  weep.  His 
is  a  benevolent  muse,  and  all's  for  the  best  in  the  best 
of  worlds. 

The  most  easily  recalled  of  Scribe's  characters  is  one 
which  shows  some  of  the  complexity  of  real  life, — Ber- 
trand,  the  cold  and  subtle  diplomatist,  who  turns  the 
zeal  and  the  generosity  of  others  to  his  own  account, 
and  makes  the  rest  of  his  fellow-men  serve  as  his  cat's- 
paws  and  scapegoats.  Here  is  a  figure  not  all  of  a 
piece :  he  has  some  life  of  his  own  ;  he  could  stand  on 
his  own  legs,  even  if  the  directing  wire  of  the  manager 
of  the  show  were  withdrawn.  After  Bertrand,  one  can 


g6  French  Dramatists. 

bring  up  with  least  effort  Michonnet,  the  old  prompter 
in  'Adrienne  Lecouvreur.'  Here,  also,  is  a  man  with 
the  blood  of  life  coursing  through  his  veins.  And  of 
all  Scribe's  countless  women  no  one  has  such  a  glow  of 
human  nature,  fragile  and  feminine,  as  Adrienne  herself. 
It  is  hard  to  have  to  grudge  Scribe  the  credit  of 
these  last  two  characters ;  but  it  is  a  fact  that  in  writ- 
ing 'Adrienne  Lecouvreur,'  Scribe  had  again  taken 
unto  himself  a  partner,  this  time  M.  Ernest  Legouve. 
Scribe  was  asked  by  the  Comedie-Frangaise  to  write  a 
comedy  for  Rachel.  He  doubted,  and  wisely,  whether 
the  task  was  not  beyond  him,  and  whether  Rachel,  who 
was  great  in  tragedy,  would  in  comedy  either  be  easy 
herself,  or  be  accepted  by  the  public.  He  casually 
consulted  M.  Legouve,  who  said  the  task  was  lighter 
than  it  seemed.  "  It  will  be  enough  to  put  into  a  new 
frame  and  another  period  Rachel's  ordinary  qualities. 
The  public  will  believe  it  a  transformation,  while  it  will 
be  only  a  change  of  costume."  —  "Will  you  look  up 
a  subject  for  us  to  treat  together  ? "  said  Scribe  at 
once.  M.  Legouvd  sought ;  and  at  last  he  happened  on 
the  anecdote  of  Adrienne  Lecouvreur  acting  Phedre, 
and  throwing  into  the  teeth  of  the  Duchess  de  Bouillon, 
who  sat  in  the  stage-box,  these  scorching  lines  of  her 

part :  — 

"  Je  ne  suis  point  de  ces  femmes  hardies 
Qui,  gofltant  dans  le  crime  une  tranquille  paix, 
Ont  su  se  faire  un  front  qui  ne  rougit  jamais  !  " 

M.  Legouve  hastened  to  carry  his  find  to  Scribe,  who 
fell  on  his  neck  in  delight,  crying,  "  A  hundred  per- 
formances at  six  thousand  francs  !  "  M.  Legouv^-  kindly 
tells  us  that  this  was  not  a  mercenary  outbreak  :  it  was 
the  natural  expression  of  the  enthusiasm  of  a  trained 


Eugene  Scribe.  97 

playwright  who  knew  that  in  the  box-office  receipts 
are  figures  that  never  lie,  or  flatter,  or  disparage,  but 
tell  the  author  with  brutal  frankness  what  the  public 
thinks  of  his  work.  M.  Legouve  has  also  described  to 
us  how  Rachel  refused  the  piece,  and  how  artfully  he 
persuaded  her  to  play  it.  Its  success  tightened  the 
link  between  Scribe  and  M.  Legouve ;  and  they  wrote 
three  other  plays  together,  of  which  the  best  known  is 
'  Bataille  de  Dames,'  turned  into  sturdy  English  by  Mr. 
Charles  Reade  as  the  '  Ladies'  Battle.' 

If  I  had  to  select  one  play  of  Scribe's  showing  him 
it  his  best,  I  should  choose  this  '  Bataille  de  Dames.' 
I  can  recommend  it  as  agreeable  reading,  and  quke 
harmless.  It  takes  no  great  study  to  see  that  the 
plot  of  the  play  is  a  wonderful  work  of  art.  The 
neatness  with  which  the  successive  links  of  the  simple 
yet  ever-changing  action  are  jointed  together  is  beyond 
all  praise.  The  comedy  of  intrigue  can  go  no  farther : 
this  is  its  last  word.  And  there  is  not  only  ingenuity 
of  incident,  there  is  some  play  of  character  ;  not  much, 
to  be  sure,  but  a  little.  Nature  in  Scribe's  plays  has 
as  poor  a  chance  as  it  had  at  the  hands  of  the  French 
gardeners  who  bent  the  yew  and  the  box  into  shapes 
of  strange  animals.  But  '  Bataille  de  Dames '  is  far 
better  in  this  respect  than  the  '  Camaraderie  '  of  fifteen 
years  before.  Ingenious  with  a  Chinese-puzzle  inge- 
nuity, all  the  pieces  fit  into  each  other,  and  fill  the  box 
exactly,  and  so  completely  that  there  is  scant  room  for 
the  least  human  nature.  In  the  '  Camaraderie '  there 
is  no  air  at  all,  and  you  cannot  breathe  ;  but  in  '  Bataille 
de  Dames '  the  people  show  some  little  will  of  their 
own,  thanks  possibly  to  M.  Legouve.  In  the  plays 
Scribe  wrote  with  M.  Legouve  there  is  more  life,  and 


98  French  Dramatists. 

less  insufficiency  of  style,  than  in  his  other  pieces. 
Scribe  had  little  of  the  literary  feeling,  and  cared  less 
for  the  art  of  writing  than  even  M.  Zola.  It  is  a  rare 
thing  for  a  Frenchman  to  attain  prominence  as  an 
author,  and  yet  write  as  ill  as  Scribe :  and  it  is  only 
as  a  dramatist  that  he  could  have  done  it ;  on  the  stage 
purely  literary  merit  is  a  secondary  consideration. 
Scribe  had  far  more  real  ability  than  M.  Legouve",  but 
he  lacked  the  tincture  of  literature  which  the  latter 
had:  so  their  conjunction  was  fertile.  Together  they 
made  a  better  play  than  Legouve"  alone,  who  with  no 
great  poetic  endowment  tried  to  be  a  poet,  or  than 
Scribe  alone,  who  was  satisfied  to  be  theatrically  ef- 
fective. So  the  '  Bataille  de  Dames '  is  the  best  of 
Scribe's  comic  imbroglios  ;  and  '  Adrienne  Lecouvreur' 
is  the  best  of  his  more  dramatic  attempts. 

In  his  lighter  comedies,  as  in  his  position  in  the 
theatrical  world,  Scribe  recalls  Lope  de  Vega.  Each 
was  in  his  day  the  chief  purveyor  of  plays ;  both  relied 
on  the  ingenuity  of  plot  to  sustain  the  interest ;  neither 
left  behind  him  a  single  memorable  character.  With 
due  allowance  for  the  differences  of  time  and  place, 
some  of  Lope  de  Vega's  comedies  are  very  like  Scribe's. 
Take  the  '  Perro  del  Hortelano : '  is  it  not  in  sugges- 
tion and  handling  much  what  it  would  have  been  had 
Scribe  written  it  ?  A  little  more  sprawling,  may  be, 
not  so  economical  in  its  effects,  but  still  much  the 
same.  The  Gardener's  Dog  is  Spanish  for  the  Dog 
in  the  Manger.  In  this  case  it  is  a  woman  lightly  and 
easily  sketched  :  she  loves,  and  she  is  jealous  ;  and  yet 
she  cannot  make  up  her  mind  to  marry  the  man  she 
loves,  because  of  his  lowly  birth.  Even  the  nincom- 
poop of  a  lover  is  not  unlike  some  of  Scribe's  uncer- 


Eugene  Scribe.  99 

tain  heroes.  The  art  of  play-making  is  constantly 
improving,  and  Scribe  could  have  given  points  to 
Lope  in  the  game  of  the  stage.  The  Spanish  drama- 
tist, on  the  other  hand,  had  a  Spanish  dignity  and 
grandiloquence,  and  some  stirrings  of  poetry.  Scribe's 
Pegasus  had  no  wings ;  and  so  his  attempts  to  rise  to 
the  romantic  and  historical  drama  did  not  succeed. 
He  had  a  telescope  rifle,  unfailing  in  shooting  folly  as 
it  flies ;  but  the  handling  of  a  siege-gun  was  beyond  his 
power. 

In  1819  Scribe  had  written  the  'Freres  Invisibles,'  a 
sufficiently  absurd  melodrama  of  the  Pixe're'court  school. 
In  1832,  in  the  midst  of  the  Romantic  ferment,  he  tried 
his  hand  at  '  Dix  Ans  de  la  Vie  d'une  Femme,'  some- 
thing in  the  style  of  Dinaux  and  Ducange's  'Trente 
Ans  ;  ou,  la  Vie  d'un  Joueur.'  But  the  dagger  and  the 
bowl  were  too  heavy  for  him  to  lift.  If  any  one  wants 
to  see  a  delightful  specimen  of  the  competent  criticism 
one  dramatist  can  visit  on  another,  as  candid  and  as 
cutting  as  may  be,  notwithstanding  its  good  nature, 
he  should  glance  over  Scribe's  drama,  and  then  read 
Dumas's  analysis  of  it  in  his  '  Souvenirs  Dramatiques.' 
Perhaps  the  rattling  raillery  of  Dumas  convinced 
Scribe  of  his  error.  It  was  twenty  years  later,  and 
only  after  'Adrienne  Lecouvreur,'  a  comedy-drama, 
had  succeeded,  that  he  ventured  on  the  '  Czarine,'  an 
historical  drama  acted  by  Rachel  in  1855.  Scribe 
could  do  a  dainty  pastel  or  a  delicate  miniature,  but 
he  lacked  the  robust  strength  which  historical  painting 
calls  for.  Strange  to  say,  the  play  is  wanting  even  in 
the  picturesqueness  of  stage-effect  when  compared 
with  Scribe's  own  libretto  for  the  '  Star  of  the  North,' 
or  with  the  beginning  of  a  play  sketched  by  Balzac, 


ioo  French  Dramatists. 

both  of  which  have  for  their  heroine  the  mistress  and 
wife  and  successor  of  Peter  the  Great.  A  compli- 
cated and  petty  intrigue  dwarfs  the  figure  of  one  who 
fills  so  large  a  place  in  history  and  in  the  imagination 
as  Catherine.  Scribe's  feebleness  in  character-drawing 
is  shown  in  the  way  his  historic  figures  slip  out  of 
mind  in  spite  of  every  effort  to  lay  hold  on  them,  and 
in  spite  of  their  pretence  to  be  portraits  of  Richard 
Cromwell  and  Marshal  Saxe,  of  Queen  Anne  and  the 
Duchess  of  Marlborough,  of  Francis  the  First  and 
Charles  the  Fifth. 

Scribe's  device  was  a  pen  crossed  over  pan-pipes, 
with  the  motto,  Inde  Fortuna  et  Libert  as,  —  a  proud 
saying,  for  all  its  humility.  He  owed  what  he  was  to 
his  pen,  and  he  acknowledged  the  debt.  The  pan-pipes, 
I  take  it,  are  meant  to  symbolize,  more  modestly  than  a 
lyre,  his  operatic  labors  :  still  they  seem  somewhat  out 
of  place,  as  no  man  was  ever  less  given  to  the  warbling 
of  native  wood-notes  wild.  Scribe's  share  in  the  de- 
velopment of  grand  opera,  and  in  the  maintenance  of 
opfra-comique,  important  as  it  is,  must  be  dismissed 
briefly.  Nowhere  is  skilful  scaffolding  more  needed 
than  in  an  opera-book,  and  nowhere  did  Scribe's  un- 
equalled genius  for  the  stage  show  to  better  advantage 
than  at  the  opera.  It  was  he  who  constructed  the 
'Jewess'  for  HaleVy,  and  'Robert  the  Devil,'  the 
'Huguenots,'  the  'Prophet,'  and  the  'Africaine,'  for 
Meyerbeer.  It  was  he,  in  great  measure,  who  made 
possible  Herr  Wagner's  art-work  of  the  future  by 
bringing  together  in  unexampled  perfection  and  pro- 
fusion the  contributions  of  the  scene-painter,  the  ballet- 
master,  the  property-man,  and  the  stage-manager,  and 
putting  them  all  at  the  service  of  the  composer  for  the 


Eugene  Scribe.  101 

embellishing  of  his  work.  As  the  First  Player  says,  in 
the  '  Rehearsal '  of  his  Grace  the  Duke  of  Buckingham, 
"And  then,  for  scenes,  clothes,  and  dancing,  we  put 
'em  quite  down,  all  that  ever  went  before  us  ;  and  these 
are  the  things,  you  know,  that  are  essential  to  a  play." 
They  are  essential  to  that  passing  show  we  call  an 
opera ;  and  no  one  handled  them  more  effectively  than 
Scribe. 

His  operas,  ballets,  and  ope"ras-comiques  fill  twenty- 
six  volumes  in  the  new  edition  of  his  works ;  and 
among  them  are  the  librettos  of  the  '  Bronze  Horse,' 
*  Crown  Diamonds,'  the  '  Sicilian  Vespers,'  the  '  Star  of 
the  North,'  'Fra  Diavolo,'  the  'Dame  Blanche,'  the 
'  Domino  Noir,'  the  '  Favorite,'  '  Masaniello,'  and  the 
'  Martyres ; '  which  last  he  had  taken  from  Corneille's 
'Polyeucte,'  just  as  he  had  taken  another  opera-book 
from  Shakspere's  'Tempest.'  Many  of  his  come"dies- 
vaudevilles  he  made  over  as  operas.  The  '  Comte  Ory,' 
was  set  by  Rossini,  and  the  '  Sonnambule '  was  arranged 
as  a  ballet.  An  Italian  librettist  afterward  took  this 
ballet,  and  used  it  as  the  book  for  Bellini's  '  Sonnam- 
bula,'  just  as  other  foreign  librettists  have  used  his 
plots  for  the  '  Ballo  in  Maschera,'  the  '  Elisire  d'Amor,' 
and  more  recently  for  'Fatinitza.' 

Consider,  for  a  moment,  Scribe's  extraordinary  dra- 
matic range.  He  began  with  the  vaudeville,  which  he 
improved  into  the  comedie-vaudeville ;  he  rose  to  the 
five-act  comedy  of  manners ;  he  invented  the  comedy 
drama ;  he  failed  in  Romantic  and  historical  drama,  but 
he  succeeded  in  handling  tragic  themes  in  grand  opera ; 
he  devised  the  ballet-opera,  and  he  gave  great  variety 
to  the  opera-comique.  He  was  ever  on  the  lookout  for 
new  dramatic  forms.  One  of  the  most  curious  of  those 


IO2  French  Dramatists. 

he  attempted  is  to  be  seen  in  the  three-act  play  of 
'Avant,  Pendant,  et  Apres.'  The  first  act,  'Before  the 
French  Revolution,'  is  a  comedy;  the  second  act, 
'  During  the  Revolution,'  is  a  drama ;  and  the  third  act, 
'  After  the  Revolution,'  is  a  vaudeville. 

The  same  impulse  to  seek  new  forms  led  him  also  to 
discover  a  new  country,  in  which  he  laid  the  scenes  of 
all  his  plays.  Scribe  called  this  new  land  England,  or 
France,  or  Russia,  or  whatever  else  he  wanted  to  make 
it  pass  for ;  but  the  critics  called  it  Scribia.  This  is  a 
country  where  the  people  are  all  cut  and  dried,  where 
the  jokes  are  generally  old  jokes,  where  every  thing 
always  comes  out  right  in  the  end,  where  waiting- 
women  twist  queens  around  their  fingers,  where  great 
effects  are  always  the  result  of  little  causes,  and  where, 
in  short,  Scribe  could  have  every  thing  his  own  way 
This  uniformity  of  local  color  made  his  plays  more 
easily  understood  in  foreign  countries,  and  facilitated 
the  task  of  the  adapter.  Beaumarchais  and  Augier 
lose  fifty  per  cent,  in  transport  to  another  land  and 
tongue.  Scribe's  tare  and  tret  is  trifling.  Manners 
are  local :  but  a  plot  might  be  used  as  well  in  England 
as  in  France,  and  in  Germany  or  Italy  as  in  England  ; 
and  so  the  universal  borrowing  from  France  began. 
Before  Scribe,  the  nations  had  borrowed  from  each 
other  all  round  :  no  one  race  had  a  monopoly  of  the 
dramatic  supply.  The  Restoration  comedy  of  England 
was  derived  from  France  ;  but  Germany  and  France 
were  both  copying  from  England  toward  the  end  of  the 
last  century ;  and  England  and  France  were  imitating 
Germany  in  the  early  part  of  this.  Since  Scribe's 
plays  began  their  tour  of  the  world,  and  since  his  re- 
organization of  the  French  Dramatic  Authors'  Society 


Eugene  Scribe.  103 

made  writing  for  the  stage  the  most  profitable  form  of 
literary  labor,  France  has  ruled  the  dramatic  market. 

It  is  instructive  to  note  that  the  French  playwright 
who  has  had  the  most  foreign  popularity,  after  Scribe,  is 
M.  Victorien  Sardou,  who  came  to  the  front  in  1861,  the 
year  of  Scribe's  death,  and  who,  like  Scribe,  places  his 
main  reliance  on  his  situations.  M.  Sardou  is  the 
direct  disciple  of  Scribe.  We  have  been  told,  that, 
when  M.  Sardou  was  learning  the  trade  of  play-making, 
he  modelled  himself  on  Scribe,  seeking  to  spy  out  his 
secret.  He  would  take  a  play  of  Scribe's,  read  one  act, 
and  then  write  the  following  acts  himself,  comparing 
his  work  with  his  model,  and  so  learning  the  tricks  of 
the  trade  from  its  greatest  master.  Proof  of  this  study 
can  be  seen  by  a  glance  at  the  list  of  M.  Sardou's 
works :  the  '  Pattes  de  Mouche '  is  his  '  Bataille  de 
Dames  ; '  '  Rabagas  '  is  his  '  Bertrand  et  Raton  ; '  and 
in  '  Nos  Intimes '  and  '  Fernande '  we  have  the  formula 
of  'Une  Chaine.'  To  M.  Sardou,  as  to  Scribe,  a  play 
is  a  complex  structure,  whose  varied  incidents  fit  into 
each  other  as  exactly  as  the  parts  of  a  machine-made 
rifle,  lacking  any  one  of  which,  the  gun  will  miss  fire. 
M.  Sardou  is  not  as  rigid  in  his  construction  as  Scribe 
was,  and  he  has  a  broader  humor,  and  is  more  open 
to  the  influences  of  the  day,  —  perhaps  too  much  so ; 
and  the  disciple  is  consequently  more  in  accord  with 
the  taste  of  the  times  than  was  the  master  as  his  career 
drew  to  a  close.  Toward  the  end  of  his  life  Scribe 
complained  that  his  pieces  did  not  meet  the  old  suc- 
cess, and  wondered  why  it  was,  sure  that  he  made 
plays  as  well  as  ever.  The  fact  was,  that  taste  had 
changed,  and  the  public  did  not  ask  for  well-made 
plays  ;  or  rather,  it  demanded  something  more  than  a 


iO4  French  Dramatists. 

well-made  play,  something  more  than  mere  workman- 
ship. Fortunately  for  his  own  peace  of  mind,  Scribe 
passed  away  before  the  full  effect  of  the  change  in 
public  taste  was  apparent. 

To  sum  up,  Scribe's  qualities  are  an  inexhaustible 
industry,  an  unfailing  invention,  an  easy  wit,  a  lively 
feeling  for  situation,  great  cleverness,  and  supreme 
technical  skill.  He  paid  little  attention  to  human 
nature ;  he  showed  no  knowledge  that  life  is  more  than 
mere  work  and  play,  that  there  can  be  grand  self-sacri- 
fice, noble  sorrow,  or  any  large  and  liberal  sweep  of 
emotion.  He  had  neither  depth  nor  breadth.  A  good 
man  himself,  and  a  generous,  in  his  plays  he  took  a 
petty,  not  to  say  an  ignoble,  view  of  life.  Even  in  his 
comedies  there  is  no  great  comic  force :  it  is  easy  to 
understand  how  Philarete  Chasles  came  to  call  him  a 
Marivaux-^zVzVr.  And  it  is  no  wonder  that  Heine, 
whose  eyes  were  wide  open  to  the  iniquities,  the  suffer- 
ings, and  the  struggles  of  mankind,  should  regard 
Scribe  as  the  arch-Philistine,  the  guardian  of  the  gates 
of  Gath,  and  should  have  risked  a  dying  jest  against 
Scribe.  As  breath  was  fast  failing  him,  Heine  was 
asked  if  he  could  whistle  (in  French,  siffler,  meaning 
also  "to  hiss"),  to  which  he  replied  with  an  effort, 
"  No,  not  even  a  play  of  M.  Scribe's." 


CHAPTER  V. 

M.    EMILE   AUGIER. 

IN  criticism,  as  in  astronomy,  we  must  needs  allow 
for  the  personal  equation ;  and  I  am  proud  to  confess 
a  hearty  admiration  for  the  sincere  and  robust  dramatic 
works  of  M.  Emile  Augier,  to  my  mind  the  foremost 
of  the  French  dramatists  of  our  day,  with  the  possible 
exception  only  of  Victor  Hugo.  M.  Augier  inherits 
the  best  traditions  of  French  comedy.  He  is  a  true 
child  of  Beaumarchais,  a  true  grandchild  of  Moliere. 
He  has  the  Gallic  thrust  of  the  one,  and  something  of 
the  broad  utterance  of  the  other  and  greater.  One 
of  the  best  actors  in  Paris  told  me  that  he  held  the 
'  Gendre  de  M.  Poirier '  to  be  the  finest  comedy  since 
the  '  Mariage  de  Figaro.'  It  would  be  hard  to  gainsay 
him  ;  and  in  the  '  Fils  de  Giboyer '  there  is  more  than 
one  touch  which  recalls  the  hand  of  the  great  master 
who  drew  '  Tartufe.' 

It  is  not  a  little  curious,  that,  while  the  plays  of  M. 
Alexandre  Dumas  and  M.  Victorien  Sardou  are  familiar 
to  the  American  theatre-goer,  M.  Augier's  virile  works 
are  but  little  known  here.  Three  or  four  years  ago 
the  case  was  the  same  in  Germany ;  and  in  an  appre- 
ciative study  of  M.  Augier's  career,  published  in  Nord 
und  Sud,  Herr  Paul  Lindau  asked  the  reason  of  this, 
and  gave  the  answer ;  which  is  simply  that  M.  Augier 
appeals  to  a  higher  (and  smaller)  class  than  either  M. 

Dumas  or  M.  Sardou.     In  the  preface  of  '  Cromwell,' 

105 


io6  French  Dramatists. 

Victor  Hugo  divides  those  who  go  to  the  theatre  into 
three  classes :  (i)  The  crowd,  who  look  for  action, 
plot,  situations ;  (2)  Women,  who  expect  passion,  emo- 
tion ;  and  (3)  Thinkers,  who  hope  for  characters,  studies 
of  human  nature.  M.  Sardou  suits  the  first  class,  M. 
Dumas  the  second,  and  M.  Augier  the  third.  It  is 
much  easier  to  transfer  to  an  alien  soil  the  situations 
of  M.  Sardou,  or  the  emotions  of  M.  Dumas,  than 
the  social  studies  of  M.  Augier,  in  whose  plays  plot 
and  passion  are  subordinate,  and  subservient  to  the 
development  of  character.  Startling  incidents  can  be 
set  forth  in  any  language,  and  strong  emotion  loses 
little  by  change  of  tongue  ;  but  a  fearless  handling  of 
burning  questions,  and  a  scorching  satire  of  society,  can 
be  fully  appreciated  only  among  the  social  surround- 
ings in  which  they  first  came  forth.  The  note  of  M. 
Augier  is  a  broad  and  liberal  loyalty ;  while  M.  Dumas's 
chief  characteristic  is  a  brilliancy  often  misdirected, 
and  M.  Sardou's  a  cleverness  always  ready  to  take 
advantage  of  the  moment.  M.  Dumas  is  too  complex 
a  problem  to  be  considered  in  a  sentence  or  two ;  but 
M.  Sardou  is  simpler,  and  one  may  venture  to  define 
the  difference  between  his  work  and  M.  Augier's  as 
not  unlike  the  difference  between  journalism  and  litera- 
ture. M.  Sardou's  puppets  live,  move,  and  have  their 
being  in  some  city  forcing-house,  where  their  master 
keeps  them  under  lock  and  key.  M.  Augier's  char- 
acters are  as  free  as  all  out-doors ;  and  they  breathe 
the  open  breeze  which  blows  from  seashore  and  hill- 
top, and  which  has  the  odor  of  the  pines,  and  not  a 
little  of  their  balsamic  sharpness. 

That  M.  Augier's  plays,  in  spite  of  their  lack  of  sen- 
sational  scenes,  should  not  have   found   favor   in   the 


M.  Emile  Augier.  107 

eyes  of  Anglo-Saxon  managers,  is  the  more  remarkable, 
because  he  is  the  most  moral  of  modern  French  dram- 
atists. He  is  not  one  of  "  them  that  call  evil  good, 
and  good  evil ;  that  put  darkness  for  light,  and  light 
for  darkness ;  that  put  bitter  for  sweet,  and  sweet  for 
bitter."  Unlike  M.  Dumas,  he  does  not  let  his  emo- 
tions run  away  with  him.  It  is  not  that  the  moral  is 
violently  thrust  through  each  play,  as  a  butterfly  is  im- 
paled on  a  pin,  to  use  Hawthorne's  apt  figure.  No : 
the  morality  in  M.  Augier,  as  in  all  really  great  authors, 
"  is  simply  a  part  of  the  essential  richness  of  inspira- 
tion," to  quote  from  that  other  American  writer  who 
has  recently  rapidly  sketched  Hawthorne's  life.  "  The 
more  a  work  of  art  feels  it  at  its  source,  the  richer  it 
is,"  continues  Mr.  James  ;  and  in  this  respect  M.  Au- 
gier's  work  is  of  royal  richness. 

Although  the  French  drama  of  to-day  is  not  so  bad 
as  many  believe  it  to  be,  still  the  dramatists,  like  the 
novelists  of  France,  have  not  taken  to  heart  Dr.  John- 
son's warning :  "  Sir,  never  accustom  your  mind  to 
mingle  vice  and  virtue."  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  quotes 
with  approval  Michelet's  assertion  that  the  Reforma- 
tion failed  in  France  because  France  did  not  wish  a 
moral  reform  ;  and  he  adds  that  the  French  are  lack- 
ing in  the  "  power  of  conduct."  Admitting  the  rule, 
M.  Augier  is  a  noble  exception :  he  has  an  abiding 
sense  of  the  importance  of  conduct  in  life,  and  he 
strenuously  seeks  to  strengthen  that  sense  in  others 
by  dwelling  on  the  influences  which  make  for  it. 
'  Home,'  the  name  which  the  English  dramatist,  Rob- 
ertson, gave  to  an  English  comedy,  for  which  he  had 
borrowed  the  plot  of  M.  Augier's  '  Aventuriere,'  is 
characteristic  of  all  M.  Augier's  work.  Home  in  his 


io8  French  Dramatists. 

eyes  is  a  sacred  thing ;  and  throughout  his  plays  we 
can  see  a  steadfast  setting-forth  of  the  holiness  of 
home  and  the  sanctity  of  the  family.  This  feeling  will 
not  let  him  be  a  passive  spectator  of  assaults  on  what 
he  cherishes.  His  is  a  militant  morality,  ever  up  in 
arms  to  fight  for  the  fireside.  The  insidious  success 
of  the  '  Dame  aux  Came'lias  '  —  in  which  a  courtesan's 
chance  love  purified  her  so  far  as  it  might  —  drew  from 
him  the  indignant  '  Manage  d'Olympe,'  and  gave  him 
the  opportunity  of  showing  what  might  be  expected 
when  the  courtesan  wormed  her  way  into  an  honorable 
household.  The  Third  Person  is  as  important  to  many 
French  dramas  of  this  century  as  was  the  Third  Estate 
to  the  nation  in  the  last  century :  but  he  is  in  no  way 
aided  and  abetted  by  M.  Augier ;  there  is  one  French 
dramatist  who  can  always  be  counted  on  for  the  hus- 
band and  the  home. 

This  love  for  the  fireside  is  not  merely  literary  capi- 
tal :  it  is  part  of  his  actual  life.  In  the  preface  to  one 
of  his  plays  he  explains  how  it  happens  that  he  has 
written  more  than  once  in  collaboration  :  it  is  owing 
to  his  fondness  for  chat  by  the  hearth  with  a  friend ; 
and  if,  in  course  of  talk,  they  start  a  subject  for  a  piece, 
and  run  it  down,  to  which  of  the  two  does  it  belong  ? 
M.  Augier's  whole  life  has  been  given  to  literature : 
his  career  is  that  of  a  true  man  of  letters,  passing  his 
time  quietly  by  his  fireside,  or  in  his  garden  in  the  study 
of  men  and  things.  Herr  Lindau  quotes  his  answer 
to  a  would-be  biographer,  perhaps  the  German  critic 
himself,  who  asked  for  adventure  or  anecdote :  "  My 
life  has  been  without  incident."  And  Mr.  W.  E.  Henle 
has  pointed  out  that  M.  Augier's  love  for  the  family 
may  be  seen  even  in  the  externals  of  his  works,  —  in 


X 

M.  Emile  Augier.  109 

the  dedication  of  his  collected  plays  to  his  mother's 
memory,  and  of  individual  pieces  to  his  sisters  and  to 
other  intimate  friends.  There  is  in  all  this  nothing 
namby-pamby :  on  the  contrary,  his  manly  tenderness 
is  joined  to  a  hearty  scorn  of  sentimentality.  Indeed, 
the  first  tribute  he  paid  to  his  family  was  an  act  of 
courage.  He  inscribed  his  earliest  play  to  the  memory 
of  his  maternal  grandfather,  Pigault-Lebrun,  who  traced 
his  descent  from  Eustache  de  St.  Pierre,  the  burgher 
of  Calais.  Pigault-Lebrun  himself  was  a  curious  prod- 
uct of  the  revolutionary  effervescence  :  put  in  prison 
twice  by  his  father  for  youthful  freaks,  he  went  through 
a  series  of  Gil-Bias  adventures  :  —  he  was  shipwrecked  ; 
he  fought  at  the  frontier ;  he  wrote  for  the  stage ;  and 
finally  he  brought  forth  certain  free-and-easy  tales, 
which  were  so  successful  that  his  father  forgave  him. 
The  dominant  quality  of  Pigault-Lebrun  was  what  the 
French  call  "verve,"  and  the  English  "go."  M.  Augier 
seems  to  have  inherited  his  independence  and  his  frank 
gayety :  perhaps  he  has  a  portion  of  the  imperative  will 
of  the  imprisoning  father ;  and,  it  may  be,  also  some 
share  of  the  stout  heart  of  Eustache  de  St.  Pierre. 

M.  Augier  began  modestly.  A  two-act  comedy  of 
antique  life,  called  the  '  Cigue,'  —  from  the  draught  of 
hemlock  which  the  hero  has  determined  to  take,  — 
tendered  first  to  the  Theatre  Francois,  was  finally 
brought  out  at  the  Ode"on  in  May,  1844.  It  met  with 
instant  success,  ran  three  months,  and  has  since  been 
taken  into  the  repertory  of  the  Comedie-Fran^aise.  In 
classic  purity  of  form  this  first  of  his  plays  remains  the 
best :  it  is  a  picture  of  self-seeking  greed,  treated  with 
a  firmness  of  touch  and  a  masculine  irony  unusual 
in  a  young  writer.  M.  Augier,  born  in  1820,  was  not 


1 10  French  Dramatists. 

twenty-four  when  the  '  Cigue '  first  saw  the  light  ot  the 
lamps.  He  had  studied  for  the  bar ;  but  the  entice- 
ments of  poetry  were  irresistible,  and,  after  the  success 
of  the  '  Cigue,'  he  devoted  himself  wholly  to  the  drama. 
He  came  upon  the  stage  just  in  the  nick  of  time : 
both  play-goers  and  professional  critics  accepted  him  as 
the  most  promising  of  a  new  school  of  dramatists. 
Just  at  this  moment  there  was  a  lull  in  the  fierce  strife 
between  the  Romanticists  and  the  Classicists.  A  year 
before  the  'Cigue,'  the  Odeon  had  acted  'Lucrece,'  a 
tragedy  by  Frangois  Ponsard,  a  classic  tale  told  in 
verses  of  romantic  variety  and  color.  The  unwitting 
poet  was  hailed  at  once  as  the  chief  of  a  new  school,  — 
the  School  of  Common  Sense  —  which  was,  to  seek 
safety  in  the  middle  path,  and  to  join  the  good  qualities 
of  both  the  opposing  styles,  without  the  failings  of 
either.  The  '  Cigue,'  on  its  appearance,  was  claimed  as 
the  second  effort  in  the  new  manner.  Neither  Ponsard 
nor  M.  Augier  —  warm  personal  friends,  and  both  men 
of  modesty  —  ever  set  up  as  leaders  of  a  new  departure  ; 
just  as  it  has  been  said  that  John  Wilkes  was  never 
a  Wilkite.  M.  Augier  gave  in  no  adhesion  to  the 
School  of  Common  Sense,  yet  was  tacitly  accepted  as 
its  lieutenant :  when  its  day  had  passed,  he  stepped  out 
of  its  narrow  limits,  and  walked  on  toward  his  own  goal 
with  a  sturdy  tread.  But  for  convenience,  and  not  in- 
accurately, we  may  consider  his  earlier  work  as  belong- 
ing to  this  school.  Beautiful  as  much  of  it  is,  taken  by 
itself,  we  see  at  once,  when  we  survey  his  writings  as 
a  whole,  that  the  earlier  pieces  were  only  tentative, 
and  that  he  had  not  yet  discovered  where  his  real 
strength  lay.  In  the  first  ten  years  after  the  'Cigue' 
was  acted,  he  brought  out  six  other  plays  in  verse ;  in 


M.  Emile  Augier.  1 1  \ 

1845  the  'Homme  de  Bien;'  in  1848  the  'Aven- 
turiere/  the  finest  and  firmest  of  all  his  metrical  come- 
dies;  in  1849  'Gabrielle/  a  noteworthy  success;  in 
1850  the  'Joueur  de  Flute/  a  weaker  return  to  the 
classic,  and  akin  in  subject  to  the  'Cigue';'  in  1852 
'  Diane,'  a  romantic  drama  written  for  Rachel,  and  acted 
by  her  without  any  great  effect,  owing,  perhaps,  to  its 
use  of  the  historical  material  which  had  already  served 
Victor  Hugo  in  'Marion  Delorme;'  and  in  1853  'Phili- 
berte,'  a  charming  comedy  of  life  in  the  last  century. 
All  these  comedies  belonged  to  the  new  school,  in  that 
they  had  common  sense  without  commonplace.  In  the 
best  of  them  were  to  be  seen  simplicity,  without  the 
weakness  of  the  Classicists,  and  vigor,  without  the  bru- 
tality of  the  Romanticists. 

'  Gabrielle/  as  we  consider  it  now  after  thirty  years, 
does  not  seem  the  best,  even  of  these  earlier  attempts  : 
it  lacks  the  easy  sweep  of  the  '  Cigue/  and  the  manly 
strength  of  the  '  Adventuriere ; '  it  is  almost  wholly 
wanting  in  the  wholesome  humor  which  plays  so  freely 
around  the  characters  in  M.  Augier's  other  comedies ; 
and,  although  the  play  is  well  constructed  from  a  tech- 
nical point  of  view,  its  climax  is  reached  by  means 
which  seem  inadequate  to  the  end  attained.  Yet  so 
noble  was  its  intention,  and  so  clean  its  execution,  that, 
in  spite  of  its  vulnerable  points,  it  created  a  profound 
sensation,  enjoyed  success  beyond  its  fellows,  and  re- 
ceived from  the  Academy  the  Monthyon  prize  of  virtue. 
It  shows  how  M.  Augier  fought  for  the  fireside  and  the 
home  before  he  gave  up  a  didactic  for  a  purely  dramatic 
method.  In  '  Gabrielle  '  we  have,  briefly,  a  young  hus- 
band devoted  to  his  wife  and  child,  and  toiling  unceas- 
ingly for  their  future  :  therefore  is  he  unable  to  divine, 


1 1 2  French  Dramatists. 

much  less  to  satisfy,  the  somewhat  sentimental  aspira- 
tions of  his  wife.  Unfortunately  a  friend  of  his  falls 
in  love  with  her,  and  tenders  the  ideal  passion  her  heart 
craves.  Fortunately  the  husband  is  warned  in  time  ; 
and  he  fights  bravely  for  his  home,  —  not  with  his 
hands,  but  with  his  brain.  Giving  no  sign  of  suspicion, 
he  appeals  to  the  lover  to  help  him  loyally  to  win  back 
his  wife's  heart  ;  then,  getting  them  both  together,  he 
seizes  an  occasion  to  set  before  them  with  heartfelt 
eloquence  the  consequences  of  a  false  step.  So  per- 
suasive and  so  powerful  is  he,  that,  when  they  are  left 
alone  for  a  moment,  the  wife  dismisses  the  lover,  who 
accepts  his  sentence  without  a  murmur.  By  herself, 
she  compares  the  two  men :  how  small  looks  the  lover 
by  the  side  of  her  husband !  On  his  return  she  con- 
fesses, whereupon  he  declares  the  fault  to  be  his  own, 
in  that  he  has  neglected  her,  and  asks  if  he  may  hope 
to  win  back  her  love.  Conquered  by  his  strength  and 
his  tenderness,  the  wife  seizes  his  hand,  and,  as  the 
curtain  falls,  exclaims, — 

*'  O  pfcre  de  famille  !  6  poete !  je  t'aime  ! " 

To  understand  the  startling  effect  of  such  a  comedy  j 
we  must  consider  the  state  of  the  stage  in  France  at 
the  time.  It  was  a  cutting  rebuke  to  the  followers 
of  Scribe  and  to  the  disciples  of  Dumas.  "There  is 
something  about  murder,"  Mr.  Howells  tells  us,  "  some 
inherent  grace  or  refinement  perhaps,  that  makes  its 
actual  representation  upon  the  stage  more  tolerable 
than  the  most  diffident  suggestion  of  adultery."  M. 
Scribe  and  the  crowd  of  collaborators  who  encompassed 
him  about  were  of  another  opinion.  The  fracture  of 
the  Seventh  Commandment,  actual  or  imminent,  was  to 


M.  Emile  Augier.  1 1 3 

be  seen  at  the  centre  of  all  pieces  of  the  Scribe  type. 
"  There  was  a  need  of  hearing  something  which  had 
common  sense,  and  which  should  lift  up,  encourage,  or 
console  mankind,  not  so  egotistic  or  foolish  as  M. 
Scribe  declares  it,"  wrote  the  younger  Dumas  ;  adding, 
that  a  writer  "robust,  loyal,  and  keen,  presented  him- 
self ;  and  '  Gabrielle,'  with  its  simple  and  touching 
story,  with  its  fine  and  noble  language,  was  the  first 
revolt  against  the  conventional  comedy." 

M.  Dumas  saw  distinctly  the  blow  M.  Augier  gave  to 
Scribe  ;  but  he  did  not  acknowledge,  that  at  the  same 
time  were  shaken  the  foundations  of  the  school  in  which 
his  father  was  a  leader.  As  M.  E"mile  Mont6gut  has 
said,  only  once  did  M.  Augier  take  up  arms  against  the 
Romanticists.  "The  re-action  of  the  School  of  Com- 
mon Sense  had,  as  a  whole,  but  little  success,  because 
it  especially  attacked  the  literary  doctrines  of  Roman- 
ticism, which  were  sufficiently  solid  to  resist.  But 
Romanticism  presented  more  vulnerable  points  than  its 
doctrines ;  for  example,  the  false  ideals  of  sentimen 
tality  it  made  fashionable,  and  the  brilliant  immorality 
of  its  works,  which  had  again  and  again  exalted  the  su 
periority  of  passion  over  duty."  With  this  feeling  M. 
Augier  had  no  sympathy :  he  is  always  for  duty  against 
passion  ;  and  '  Gabrielle  '  was  a  curt  rebuke  to  '  Antony.' 
Yet  one  can  but  regret,  with  M.  Monte"gut,  that  the 
object  was  attained  by  this  mild  piece,  in  the  author's 
earlier  and  gentler  manner,  rather  than  by  a  true  com- 
edy in  the  hardy  and  satiric  style  of  his  later  work. 
Sham  sentimentality  and  misplaced  yearnings  call  for 
the  hot  iron  of  satire  ;  and  the  weapon  which  M.  Augier 
soon  forged  for  use  against  the  hypocrites  and  schem- 
ers of  the  '  Effrontes  '  and  the  '  Fils  de  Giboyer '  would 


ii4  French  Dramatists. 

have  served  effectively  against  personified  Romanticism. 
But,  like  many  another  young  warrior,  M.  Augier  was 
a  long  time  finding  his  right  weapon.  After  writing 
without  aid  the  seven  plays  in  verse  which  have  been 
grouped  together,  he  changed  about,  and  took  to  prose 
and  to  collaboration.  In  the  '  Pierre  de  Touche  '  (1853), 
in  which  M.  Jules  Sandeau  was  a  partner,  and  in  '  Cein- 
ture  Doree'  (1855),  m  which  M.  Foussier  was  a  half- 
partner,  a  distinct  advance  can  be  noted  toward  what 
was  soon  seen  to  be  M.  Augier's  true  road ;  and  in  the 
'Gendre  de  M.  Poirier '  (1855)  he  struck  the  path,  and 
walked  straight  to  the  goal. 

To  my  mind  the  '  Gendre  de  M.  Poirier '  is  the  model 
modern  comedy  of  manners  :  its  one  competitor  for 
the  foremost  place,  the  '  Demi-Monde '  of  M.  Dumas,  is 
fatally  weighted  by  its  subject.  M.  Augier  gives  us 
a  picture  of  the  real  world,  and  not  of  the  half  world. 
M.  Montegut  truly  calls  it  "  not  only  the  best  comedy 
of  our  time,  but  the  only  one  which  satisfies  the  idea 
formerly  held  as  to  what  a  comedy  should  be."  Most 
modern  French  comedies  are  melodramatic ;  and  more 
than  one  successful  play  by  Dumas  or  Sardou  is  but  a 
Bowery  drama  in  a  dress-coat.  But  the  '  Gendre  de 
M.  Poirier '  is  pure  comedy,  and  would  be  recognized  as 
such  by  Congreve  and  Sheridan,  Lessing  and  Beau- 
marchais.  It  is  simple  and  straightforward  in  story, 
and  it  has  no  petty  artifices  or  cheap  machinery.  The 
interest  arises  from  the  clash  of  character  against  char- 
acter, and  not  from  external  incidents  or  ready-made 
situations.  The  subject  is  the  old,  old  strife  between 
blood  and  wealth,  between  high  birth  and  a  full  purse. 
M.  Poirier  is  a  shop-keeper,  who,  having  made  a  fortune, 
has  political  aspirations,  which  he  seeks  to  advance 


M.  Emile  Augier.  115 

by  an  alliance  with  the  aristocracy.  The  Marquis  de 
Presles  is  a  young  nobleman  without  money,  but  with 
blood  and  to  spare.  The  daughter  of  M.  Poirier  be- 
comes the  wife  of  M.  de  Presles,  and  is  the  innocent 
victim  of  both  father  and  husband ;  and  the  situations 
of  the  play  are  called  forth  by  the  unexpected  develop- 
ment of  her  character  under  the  pressure  of  suffering, 
—  a  character  which  M.  de  Presles,  although  they  have 
been  married  three  months,  has  hitherto  held  to  be 
colorless.  From  idle  carelessness  the  husband  gets 
into  trouble,  and  the  young  and  plebeian  wife  has  twice 
a  chance  of  saving  his  patrician  honor.  There  is  no 
palliation  of  his  vice,  still  less  any  pandering  to  it. 
Nakedly  it  stands  before  us,  and  we  see  the  pain  which 
the  empty  pursuit  of  pleasure  may  bring  even  on  the 
innocent.  A  chance  of  reconciliation  is  offered  to  the 
marquis  at  a  heavy  cost  of  honor ;  and  this  brings  about 
the  beautiful  scene  —  one  of  the  most  pathetic  known 
to  the  modern  stage,  and  ending  in  a  truly  dramatic 
surprise  —  where  the  wife  nobly  rejects  the  sacrifice, 
and  sends  her  husband  forth  to  battle  for  his  name. 
Besides  these  three  characters  there  are  but  two  others  ; 
and  to  carry  through  a  full  four-act  comedy  with  but 
five  parts  is  an  instance  of  that  calm  simplicity  which 
only  a  very  high  art  can  attain. 

The  '  Gendre  de  M.  Poirier '  is  truly  dramatic  in  every 
sense,  above  all  in  the  rare  merit  of  impartiality.  The 
authors  do  not  take  sides,  and  the  scales  are  held  with 
an  even  hand.  Altogether  the  tone  of  the  play  is  so 
honest,  healthy,  and  hardy,  and  its  literary  quality  is 
so  high,  that  I  am  never  tired  of  reading  it  and  prais- 
ing it.  I  see  in  it  an  almost  Molierian  inspiration : 
indeed,  it  seems  to  me  not  only  the  best  French  comedy 


n6  French  Dramatists. 

since  Beaumarchais,  but  better  than  any  between  Beau- 
marchais  and  Moliere.  Beside  the  noble  simplicity  of 
its  subject,  it  has  more  than  one  characteristic  of  the 
great  sad  humorist's  style  :  for  one  thing,  it  unites,  in 
true  Molierian  manner,  humor  and  good  humor.  The 
humor  is  searching  and  liberal,  and  the  good  humor  is 
abundant  enough  to  light  the  whole  play  with  healthy 
laughter.  In  the  evolution  of  the  characters  again  we 
catch  a  glimpse  of  Moliere  :  every  one  of  the  five  per- 
sons of  the  play  is  at  once  a  type  and  an  individual, 
true  to  eternal  human  nature.  In  all  five  can  be  seen 
a  masculine  sturdiness  of  conception  allied  to  an  almost 
feminine  delicacy  of  delineation. 

This  remark  reminds  me,  that,  although  I  have  hither- 
to spoken  of  the  'Gendre  de  M.  Poirier'  as  M.  Augier's, 
it  is  signed  also  by  M.  Jules  Sandeau.  However,  no  sub- 
stantial injustice  is  done;  for,  while  there  is  nothing 
else  of  M.  Sandeau's  which  will  bear  comparison  with 
the  '  Gendre  de  M.  Poirier,'  it  is  but  the  best  expres- 
sion of  M.  Augier's  genius.  Both  M.  Augier  and  M. 
Sandeau  are  men  of  too  marked  an  individuality  to 
gain  by  collaboration,  although  in  this  play  the  manly 
vigor  of  the  former  and  the  caressing  gentleness  of 
the  other  blend  harmoniously.  Not  always  has  the 
union  been  so  easy.  In  the  'Pierre  de  Touche,'  for 
instance,  as  it  has  been  neatly  said,  the  characters  are 
by  the  author  of  the  '  Effrontes,'  and  the  situations  and 
scenery  are  by  the  author  of  '  Mile,  de  la  Seigliere.' 
And  in  their  latest  joint-production,  'Jean  de  Thom- 
meray,'  M.  Augier  had  obviously  only  borrowed  the 
idea  of  M.  Sandeau's  charming  tale,  and  had  himself 
written  the  whole  play,  stamped  throughout  by  his 
muscular  hand.  "Dans  tout  concubitus"  wrote  M. 


M.  £mile  Augier.  117 

Augier  in  regard  to  M.  Labiche's  collaborations,  "  il  y 
a  un  male  et  une  femelle." 1  Now  it  is  not  to  be 
doubted  that  M.  Augier  is  the  male.  To  him  that  hath 
shall  be  given  :  on  ne  prete  quaux  riches.  So  much  the 
worse  for  M.  Sandeau. 

The  effect  of  collaboration  is  to  raise  the  general 
level  of  dramatic  workmanship.  Partnership  makes  it 
easier  to  learn  the  difficult  trade  of  playmaking.  The 
beginner  full  of  ideas  serves  his  apprenticeship  with 
the  veteran  full  of  experience ;  and  the  association  is 
for  mutual  profit.  But,  if  we  get  more  good  plays,  we 
gain  no  more  great  ones.  Two  minds  can  rarely  have 
the  singleness  and  simplicity  needed  to  conceive  and 
carry  out  a  truly  great  idea.  Indeed,  since  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher,  the  '  Gendre  de  M.  Poirier '  is  the  first 
masterpiece ;  and  its  strength  and  beauty  are  in  great 
measure  owing  to  the  fact  that  M.  Augier  and  M. 
Sandeau,  like  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  are  kindred 
intellects,  thinking  alike  in  important  matters,  and 
happily  correcting  each  other  in  minor  details.  Gener- 
ally the  two  natures  either  clash  irreconcilably,  or  else 
emphasize  each  other's  virtues  and  vices  with  a  conse- 
quent loss  of  proportion.  This  is  to  be  seen  even  in 
M.  Augier's  case,  although  he  has  only  collaborated 
with  first-rate  men,  —  Alfred  de  Musset,  M.  Jules  San- 
deau, M.  Eugene  Labiche,  and  M.  Edouard  Foussier ; 
the  first  three,  like  himself,  members  of  the  Academy. 
In  1849  he  wrote  a  little  one-act  trifle,  the  'Habit 
Vert,'  with  Musset ;  and  in  1877  he  joined  M.  Eugene 
Labiche  in  writing  the  '  Prix  Martin,'  a  three-act  farce ; 
and  neither  of  these  is  equal  to  the  average  of  either 
of  its  author's  other  plays. 

"  In  every  consorting,  there  must  be  a  male  and  a  female." 


1 1 8  French  Dramatists. 

To  the  partnership  with  M.  Foussier  we  owe  one, 
at  least,  of  M.  Augier's  most  important  plays,  —  the 
'Lionnes  Pauvres  '  (1858).  I  can  but  think  that  the 
play  would  have  been  better,  had  M.  Augier  written  it 
alone.  M.  Sandeau's  gentleness  may  have  corrected 
M.  Augier's  occasional  acerbity ;  and  the  '  Gendre  de 
M.  Poirier'  is  artistically  a  finer  piece  of  work  than 
any  thing  M.  Augier  did  by  himself :  but  M.  Fouisser 
simply  says  "ditto"  to  M.  Augier,  and  so  their  joint 
work  shows  an  over-accentuation  and  almost  a  harsh- 
ness of  tone  not  to  be  found  in  the  other  plays  of  the 
author  of  the  'Fils  de  Giboyer.'  A  comparison  of 
the  'Mariage  d'Olympe '  (1855),  written  alone,  with 
the  'Lionnes  Pauvres  '  (1858),  written  with  M.  Foussier, 
will  show  what  I  mean.  In  the  latter  there  is  an  over- 
emphasis not  to  be  detected  in  the  former ;  and  the 
conception  and  dramatic  construction  is  feebler  in  the 
joint  work  than  when  M.  Augier  relied  on  himself 
alone.  These  two  plays  are  linked  together  here,  be- 
cause, although  a  comedy  in  verse  intervened,  in  them 
M.  Augier  came  before  the  public  in  an  entirely  new 
manner.  The  '  Dame  aux  Cam&ias,'  first  acted  in 
1852,  changed  the  whole  aspect  of  contemporary  dra- 
matic literature.  The  merely  amusing  comedy  was 
pushed  from  the  front  rank,  to  which  the  skill  of  Scribe 
had  advanced  it  ;  and,  as  Scribe  fell  from  his  high 
estate,  M.  Dumas  came  to  the  front  as  the  demonstra- 
tor of  social  science  set  forth  upon  the  stage.  A 
quarter  of  a  century  ago  M.  Dumas  had  not  developed 
into  the  moral  philosopher  who  now  so  calmly  surveys 
mankind  from  the  summit  of  a  preface  ;  and  the  moral- 
ity of  his  earlier  plays  was  easy,  to  say  the  least.  The 
success  of  these  pieces  of  M.  Dumas's  was  the  one 


M.  Emile  Augier.  119 

thing  needful  to  the  full  fruition  of  M.  Augier's  genius. 
Orderly,  fond  of  home,  full  of  love  for  the  family,  and 
a  bitter  foe  to  any  insidious  attack  on  these  ideals,  he 
saw  in  the  '  Dame  aux  Came'lias,'  its  successors  and  its 
rivals,  formidable  adversaries  with  whom  to  do  battle. 
The  school  of  easy  morality  offered  a  shining  mark 
for  his  satire  ;  and,  in  the  new  dramatic  form  which 
Dumas  had  introduced,  Augier  found  a  sure  weapon 
ready  to  his  hand.  In  the  'Manage  d'Olympe'  and  in 
the  '  Lionnes  Pauvres '  he  first  showed  his  willingness 
to  sound  a  note  of  warning  against  social  dangers,  and 
displayed  a  power  of  grappling  with  social  problems. 
In  both  plays  the  subject  is  repulsive,  and  of  a  kind 
not  now  tolerated  on  the  English-speaking  stage.  An 
adaptation  of  the  '  Lionnes  Pauvres,'  called  '  A  False 
Step,'  and  made  with  due  decorousness  of  expression, 
was  refused  a  license  in  London  in  1878.  Plays  writ- 
ten in  English,  like  novels  written  in  English,  must  be 
made  virginibus  puerisque ;  and  so  only  half  of  life 
gets  itself  into  our  literature.  In  France,  fortunately 
or  unfortunately,  the  dramatic  moralist  labors  under 
no  such  limitations.  Yet  it  is  to  be  recorded  that  the 
French  censors  tried  to  prevent  the  production  of  the 
'  Lionnes  Pauvres '  unless  it  were  made  more  moral ; 
one  of  their  suggestions,  as  M.  Augier  tells  us  in  his 
preface,  being  that  the  vicious  woman  should,  between 
the  fourth  and  fifth  acts,  have  an  attack  of  small-pox  as 
a  "  natural  consequence  of  her  perversity." 

The  late  G.  H.  Lewes,  one  of  the  best  of  dramatic 
critics,  wrote  of  a  revival  of  this  play  in  1867:  "The 
comedy  —  or  shall  I  not  rather  call  it  tragedy?  —  was 
terribly  affecting :  the  authors  have  shown  us  what 
comedy  may  be,  should  be.  They  have  boldly  laid  bare 


I2O  French  Dramatists. 

one  of  the  hideous  sores  of  social  life,  and  painted  the 
consequences  of  the  present  rage  for  dress  and  luxury 
which  is  rapidly  demoralizing  the  middle  classes  of 
Europe."  The  hideous  sore  was  the  possible  change 
from  passionate  adultery  to  salaried  prostitution  for  the 
continuance  of  luxury  and  extravagance.  The  scene 
is  laid  in  two  households ;  and  we  see  in  one  the  wife 
awakening  to  desertion,  and  in  the  other  a  husband 
discovering  his  dishonor.  The  subject  was  indeed  a 
bold  one ;  and,  if  the  play  had  succeeded,  it  would  go 
far  to  contradict  the  assertion,  made  now  and  again  in 
Th6ophile  Gautier's  dramatic  criticisms,  that  the  stage 
never  becomes  possessed  of  any  idea  until  it  has  been 
worn  threadbare  in  print.  Unfortunately  the  play, 
although  more  than  once  revived,  and  always  well  re- 
ceived, never  makes  a  long  stay  on  the  stage.  It  owes 
this  lack  of  stability,  perhaps,  to  the  very  boldness  of 
its  subject :  this,  at  least,  is  the  suggestion  of  M. 
Sarcey,  formulated  when  the  play  was  last  revived,  — 
in  the  fall  of  1879.  The  subject  was  so  novel  in  1858, 
and  so  hazardous,  that  the  authors  did  not  dare  to 
paint  the  wicked  woman  in  the  vivid  colors  which  the 
situation  demanded  :  they  attenuated  the  drawing,  and 
filled  it  in  with  half-tints,  to  the  obvious  weakening  of 
the  effect.  In  spite  of  this  blemish,  the  'Lionnes 
Pauvres '  remains  a  work  of  extraordinary  vigor  and 
value, — one  which  the  future  historian  of  Parisian  soci- 
ety under  the  Second  Empire  cannot  afford  to  neglect. 
Yet  as  a  work  of  art  it  is  inferior  to  the  '  Mariage 
d'Olympe,'  which  M.  Augier  wrote  alone,  and  which 
had  no  success  at  all.  Olympe  is  a  courtesan  who 
tricks  an  inexperienced  young  man  into  a  marriage, 
and  by  a  skilful  comedy  gets  herself  recognized  by 


M.  Emile  Augier.  121 

his  family.  Once  sure  of  her  position  in  an  honora- 
ble household,  she  is  seized  by  the  nostalgic  de  la  boue, 
the  longing  for  the  mud,  the  homesickness  for  the 
gutter  from  which  she  has  been  lifted,  and  in  which 
she  had  her  natural  growth.  A  lover  appears,  and  she 
sells  herself  to  him  from  mere  wantonness.  Brought 
to  bay  by  her  husband's  grandfather,  the  head  of  his 
noble  house,  she  threatens  to  publish  a  scandal  about 
an  innocent  young  girl,  the  youngest  member  of  the 
family.  Unable  to  buy  her  off,  the  old  marquis  shoots 
her  down  like  a  dog.  While  this  was  a  fit  solution  of 
the  situation,  so  violent  a  method  of  meting  out  poetic 
justice  revolted  the  play-going  public  ;  and  the  final 
pistol-shot  killed  the  play  as  well  as  the  heroine.  It 
came  before  its  time :  the  public  was  not  ripe  for  it. 
Since  then  the  stage  has  taken  a  bold  stride  forward, 
and  a  sudden  shot  has  cut  the  Gordian  knot  in  two  of 
M.  Dumas'  plays,  —  the  'Princesse  Georges,'  and  the 
'  Femme  de  Claude.'  On  two  occasions  the  '  Mariage 
d'Olympe '  has  been  revived  to  see  if  a  more  favorable 
fortune  might  not  be  found  for  it ;  but  although  re- 
spectfully received,  and  although  its  many  good  quali- 
ties are  admitted,  it  has  never  been  able  to  captivate 
the  general  public  and  to  compel  admiration  from  the 
common  throng. 

The  heroine  of  the  '  Mariage  d'Olympe '  is  not  so 
vicious  as  the  heroine  of  the  'Lionnes  Pauvres,'  for 
whom  there  is  no  excuse  to  be  made ;  and  the  sudden 
taking-off  of  the  former  is  more  merciful  than  the  awful 
perspective  opened  before  us  as  the  certain  course  of 
the  latter.  In  each  play  we  have  a  sickening  picture 
of  depravity ;  and  the  stronger  the  artist's  hand,  and 
the  finer  his  art,  the  more  we  wish  that  he  had  chosen 


122  French  Dramatists. 

another  subject.  The  orgy  in  the  second  act  of  the 
'  Mariage  d'Olympe '  is  as  typical  in  its  way  as  Couture's 
picture  of  the  Romans  of  the  decadence  ;  but  it  is  set 
forth  with  a  decorous  pen  by  an  author  who  respects 
himself.  There  is  nothing  in  it  of  the  unspeakable 
filth  of  M.  Zola's  '  Nana ; '  besides,  Olympe  is  true,  and 
in  the  highest  degree  artistic,  and  Nana  is  conventional 
in  spite  of  her  minute  Naturalism.  One  feels  that 
the  mere  mention  of  M.  Augier  in  the  same  breath  with 
M.  Zola  is  a  mistake  in  taste ;  yet  in  the  portrait  of 
Olympe  there  is  an  impression  of  main  strength  which 
one  feels  M.  Zola  must  appreciate.  I  should  be 
tempted  to  characterize  it  as  violent  and  brutal,  if  these 
were  not  altogether  too  harsh  words  to  apply  to  a 
writer  so  well-bred  and  so  keen  as  M.  Augier.  It  is 
perhaps  safe  to  say,  that,  had  it  been  treated  by  another 
hand,  "violent  and  brutal"  would  surely  be  the  exact 
words  to  employ.  It  is  not  that  the  note  is  forced,  or 
that  there  is  any  thing  false  in  the  treatment :  on  the 
contrary,  no  work  of  M.  Augier  is  more  sober  or  direct. 
The  painful  impression  is  no  doubt  due  to  the  repulsion 
inherent  in  the  subject,  and  it  is  this  painful  impres- 
sion which  has  kept  the  play  from  attaining  general 
popularity. 

Between  the  'Mariage  d'Olympe'  (1855)  and  the 
'  Lionnes  Pauvres'  (1858),  M.  Augier  had  reverted  to 
verse  in  'La  Jeunesse/  acted  in  1857.  Eleven  years 
later,  in  1868,  came  'Paul  Forestier,'  another  poetical 
play.  These  two  are  his  latest  attempts  in  verse,  and 
may  therefore  be  considered  together.  'La  Jeunesse' 
is  closely  akin  to  Ponsard's  '  L'Honneur  et  1'Argent ' 
in  subject  and  style.  Its  verse  is  not  so  academic  in 
its  elegance  as  Ponsard's ;  but  it  is  fresher,  and  it  has 


M.  Emile  Augier.  123 

more  freedom  :  the  flowers  of  M.  Augier's  poesy  always 
have  their  roots  in  the  soil.  In  spite  of  the  dates,  it 
seems  as  though  '  La  Jeunesse '  must  have  been  written 
just  after  '  Gabrielle : '  they  are  informed  by  the  same 
spirit,  and  in  each  is  a  warning  to  be  seen. 

In  as  marked  contrast  as  may  be  to  both  of  these 
is  '  Paul  Forestier,'  M.  Augier's  last  drama  in  verse. 
Indeed,  it  is  so  unlike  the  rest  of  his  plays,  that  it 
might  almost  be  taken  for  the  work  of  another.  It  is 
a  play  of  pure  passion  surchanged  with  hurrying  emo- 
tion, and  culminating  in  what  one  cannot  but  think, 
in  spite  of  all  the  skill  with  which  it  is  done,  is  a  con- 
ventional conclusion,  only  caused  by  a  wrenching  of 
the  logic  of  the  characters,  wherein  vice  is  punished, 
and  virtue  rewarded,  in  spite  of  themselves.  M.  Augier's 
comedies  are  generally  moral  in  another  and  nobler 
manner  than  this.  Here  one  feels  that,  given  the 
characters  and  situation,  the  outcome  would  have  been 
different.  In  general,  M.  Augier's  logic  is  so  inexora- 
ble, and  the  moral  so  entirely  a  part  of  the  essence  of 
his  story,  that  to  come  upon  this  play,  in  which  the 
moral  seems  merely  tacked  on,  is  something  of  a  shock. 
The  only  excuse  at  hand  is  that  the  poet  had  run  away 
with  the  moralist,  and  that  the  latter  got  the  upper 
hand  only  in  time  to  pull  up  as  best  he  might. 

In  America  the  divorce  between  poetry  and  the  stage 
seems  to  be  as  final,  and  as  unhealthy  for  both  parties, 
as  the  divorce  between  politics  and  society.  In  France 
one  has  a  chance  now  and  then  of  hearing  an  actor 
speak  the  language  of  the  gods.  The  habit  of  writing 
in  verse  is  dying  out  slowly;  yet,  as  M.  Augier  has 
shown  us,  the  poetic  attitude  is  possible  even  to  those 
who  use  the  language  of  men.  It  may  well  be  doubted 


124  French  Dramatists. 

whether  the  gradual  disappearance  of  French  dramatic 
verse  is  greatly  to  be  deplored.  The  rhymed  Alexan- 
drine is  not  a  fit  dramatic  instrument :  it  is,  of  all  met- 
rical forms,  the  one  least  suited  to  the  stage.  The 
theatre  requires  action,  and  the  Alexandrine  is  lazy 
and  slow.  The  theatre  requires  simplicity,  and,  above 
all,  directness  ;  and  the  Alexandrine  lends  itself  only 
too  easily  to  the  employment  of  drum-like  words,  loud- 
sounding,  empty,  and  monotonous.  M.  Augier  suc- 
ceeds in  overcoming  this  temptation  :  so  close  at  times 
is  his  verse,  that  it  would  be  no  light  task  to  turn  his 
Alexandrines  into  English  verse,  line  for  line.  Style 
is  generally  on  a  level  with  the  thought  it  clothes.  In 
M.  Augier's  poetry  we  find  none  of  the  haziness  of 
expression  which  results  from  weakness  of  conception. 
He  sees  clearly,  and  speaks  frankly  :  his  verse  is  flexi- 
ble, full,  and  direct.  In  his  antique  and  mediaeval 
plays,  especially  in  the  '  Aventuriere,'  it  abounds  in 
grace  and  color ;  and  the  metre  helps  to  keep  up  the 
artificial  remoteness  of  the  illusion. 

It  is,  perhaps,  my  duty  to  give  a  specimen  of  M. 
Augier's  verse,  although  I  dare  not  attempt  a  transla- 
tion. Here,  then,  is  the  indignant  rebuke  of  Fabrice, 
when  Clorinde,  the  adventuress,  claims  the  right  to 
be  treated  with  the  courtesy  due  to  a  woman  :  — 

"  Vous  une  femme  ?     Un  lache  est-il  un  homme  ?     Non  .  .  . 
Eh  bien  !  je  vous  le  dis  :  on  doit  le  meme  outrage 
Aux  femmes  sans  pudeur  qu'aux  homines  sans  courage, 
Car  le  droit  au  respect,  la  premiere  grandeur, 
Pour  nous  c'est  le  courage  et  pour  vous  la  pudeur. 
La  sainte  dignite"  que  vous  avez  salie 
Au  lieu  de  1'invoquer,  souhaitez  qu'on  1'oublie. 
Vous  seule,  songez-y,  mais  pour  pleurer  sur  vous. 
O  femme  sans  amour,  sans  enfants,  sans  dpoux ; 


M.  Emile  Augier.  125 

Etrang&re  au  milieu  des  tendresses  humaines, 
La  glace  de  la  mort  est  ddja  dans  vos  veines, 
Et  quand  vous  descendrez  au  ndant  du  cercueil, 
II  ne  s'dteindra  rien  en  vous  qu'un  peu  d'orgueil! 
C'est  votre  chatiment !     Aussi,  je  vous  1'atteste, 
Vous  me  feriez  pitid,  si  vous  n'e'tiez  funeste  .  •. 
Mais  lorsque  je  vois,  vos  parcelles  et  vous, 
Repandre  vos  poisons  dans  les  coeurs  les  plus  doux, 
Quand  surtout  vous  voulez,  par  d'odieuses  trames, 
Prendre  dans  nos  maisons  le  rang  d'honnetes  femmes, 
A  cote*  de  nos  sceurs  lever  vos  fronts  abjects, 
Et  comme  notre  amour  nous  volez  nos  respects !  .  .  . 
Tiens,  va-t'-en ! " 

(Act  iv.  sc.  5.) 

Well  as  M.  Augier  could  handle  the  Alexandrine, 
his  admirable  artistic  instinct  told  him  that  it  could 
only  be  used  to  great  disadvantage  in  attacking  the 
weak  points  of  a  more  modern  and  complex  civilization. 
In  a  play  of  passion  like  '  Paul  Forestier,'  or  in  a  more 
or  less  didactic  and  idealized  comedy  like  '  La  Jeunesse,' 
it  might  serve ;  but  in  a  direct  assault  on  a  crying  evil, 
as  in  the  '  Mariage  d'Olympe  '  or  the  '  Lionnes  Pauvres,' 
metre  would  hamper  rather  than  help ;  and  so  verse 
was  discarded  for  a  prose  as  pointed  and  as  nervous  as 
any  dramatist  could  wish.  M.  Augier's  practice  as  a 
poet  was  of  great  aid  in  giving  to  his  prose  its  form 
and  color :  it  is  a  true  poet's  prose,  —  a  prose  lifted  at 
times  on  the  wings  of  poetry,  but  never  to  soar  out  of 
sight.  M.  Augier's  prose  is  seemingly  hurried  at  times  : 
it  shows,  besides  the  effect  of  its  author's  poetic  expe- 
rience, a  study  of  Beaumarchais  :  one  catches  at  times 
a  faint  echo  of  the  "  ruse,  rase",  blase"  "  manner  of 
Figaro.  It  is  as  picturesque,  in  its  nineteenth-cen- 
tury way,  as  was  Beaumarchais's ;  and  it  is  far  more 


126  French  Dramatists. 

correct  and  more  natural.  Indeed,  it  is  the  model  of 
dramatic  dialogue  of  our  day,  —  terse,  tense,  racy,  and 
idiomatic. 

Nowhere  is  M.  Augier's  style  seen  to  better  advan- 
tage than  in  the  series  of  startling  comedies  of  con- 
temporary life  which  he  brought  forth  between  1861 
and  1869.  The  avenging  pistol-shot  was  abandoned 
for  the  whip-lash  of  satire.  At  bottom,  both  the 
'Mariage  d'Olympe'and  the  'Lionnes  Pauvres '  were 
dramas.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  '  Effrontes ' 
and  the  '  Fils  de  Giboyer '  are  comedies  :  they  are 
models  of  what  the  modern  comedy  of  manners  should 
be ;  they  show  no  trace  of  melodrama,  and  the  interest 
arises  naturally  from  the  clash  of  character  against 
character.  Therefore  it  is  not  a  little  difficult  to  con- 
vey an  idea  of  their  high  merit ;  for  no  rehearsal  of 
the  plot  fairly  represents  the  play,  because  the  plot  is 
a  secondary  consideration  ;  and  any  description  of  char- 
acter is  pale  and  weak  copying  of  what  in  the  comedies 
moves  before  us  with  all  the  myriad  hues  of  life. 

"There  has  never  been  a  literary  age,"  so  Joubert 
tells  us,  "  in  which  the  dominant  taste  was  not  sickly. 
The  success  of  an  excellent  author  consists  in  making 
healthy  works  agreeable  to  sickly  tastes."  M.  Augier 
boldly  surmounted  this  difficulty  by  making  the  sickly 
tastes  of  his  age  —  a  literary  one  beyond  all  question 
—  the  theme  of  his  satire.  He  attacked  contemporary 
demoralization  in  four  comedies, — the  'Effrontes' 
(1861),  the  'Fils  de  Giboyer'  (1862),  the  'Contagion' 
(1866),  and  '  Lions  et  Renards'  (1869).  No  one  of  them 
was  so  calmly  artistic  or  symmetrical  as  the  '  Gendre 
de  M.  Poirier,'  but  all  four  of  them,  taken  together 
and  considered  as  one,  are  more  exactly  typical  of  his 


M.  Emile  Augier.  127 

genius,  and  give  us  an  even  higher  opinion  of  it.  The 
'  Gendre  de  M.  Poirier '  remains  M.  Augier's  best  play ; 
but  in  his  series  of  satiric  comedies  there  are  characters 
who  linger  in  the  memory  even  longer  than  M.  Poirier 
himself,  —  Giboyer,  for  instance,  who  ties  together  the 
first  two  plays  ;  and  d'Estrigaud,  who  links  the  other 
pair. 

In  the  '  Effrontes '  an  assault  was  made  on  discredit- 
able speculation,  and  undue  respect  for  mere  money 
whencesoever  derived.  Inthe'Fils  de  Giboyer'  —  in 
which  Giboyer,  a  Bohemian  of  the  press,  and  the 
Marquis  d'Auberive,  a  representative  of  the  old  nobili- 
ty, re-appeared  from  the  preceding  play  —  a  plain  pic- 
ture was  presented  of  clerical  intriguing  in  politics. 
All  at  once  M.  Augier  found  himself  in  a  wasp's  nest. 
Clericalism  was  in  arms ;  and  M.  Augier  received  hot 
shot  and  heavy  from  newspaper  and  pamphlet,  accus- 
ing him  of  odious  personalities,  calling  him  Aristopha- 
nes, and  recalling  the  legend  that  the  death  of  Socrates 
was  due  to  the  attacks  of  the  great  Greek  humorist. 
The  likeness  to  Aristophanes  was  not  altogether  inapt ; 
for,  without  the  license  of  the  Greek,  the  Frenchman 
had  the  same  directness  of  thrust.  He  indignantly 
repelled  the  accusation  of  personality,  while  frankly 
admitting  that  one  character  —  and  but  one  —  was 
drawn  from  the  living  model.  This  was  Deodat,  in 
which  everybody  had  recognized  Veuillot,  the  ultra- 
montane gladiator  and  papal-bull  fighter.  The  denial 
availed  little.  A  disreputable  pamphleteer  who  called 
himself  Eugene  de  Mirecourt,  author  of  a  series  of 
prejudiced  and  inaccurate  contemporary  biographies, 
professed  to  recognize  himself  in  Giboyer  (without  war- 
rant, surely ;  for,  in  spite  of  his  vice  and  venality,  Gi- 


128  French  Dramatists. 

boyer  was  sound  at  the  core) ;  and  this  fellow  published, 
in  answer  to  the  '  Fils  de  Giboyer,'  a  stout  volume  called 
the  '  Petit-fils  de  Pigault-Lebrun,'  in  which  he  tried  to 
hit  M.  Augier  over  the  shoulder  of  his  grandfather, 
gathering  together  stores  of  apocryphal  anecdotes  and 
doubtful  jests. 

Nothing  daunted  by  this  rain  of  invective,  but  hold- 
ing it  rather  as  proof  that  he  had  hit  the  mark,  M. 
Augier  returned  to  the  assault.  One  may  guess  that 
he  delights  in  the  combat,  and  is  never  so  happy  as 
when  giving  battle  for  the  right.  In  this  case  he 
showed  that  he  had  what  we  Yankees  call  "  grit."  He 
brought  out  a  new  pair  of  plays.  In  the  '  Contagion/ 
as  in  the  '  EffronteV  he  attacked  a  general  evil,  —  the 
cheap  scepticism  of  the  hour,  the  want  of  faith  in  the 
future,  the  ribald  scoffing  at  things  hitherto  held  sacred. 
Then  in  '  Lions  et  Renards,'  as  in  the  '  Fils  de  Giboyer,' 
he  used  one  of  the  characters,  fully  developed  in  the 
earlier  play,  as  a  mainspring  of  the  polemic  action  of 
the  later.  In  the  '  Contagion  '  we  see  the  Baron  d'Es- 
trigaud,  most  keen  and  quick-witted  of  rascals,  carrying 
off  his  rascality  with  an  easy  grace,  and  taking  things 
with  a  high  hand.  In  '  Lions  et  Renards '  clericalism 
re-appears  again  in  the  person  of  a  M.  de  St.  Agathe, 
mentioned  already  in  the  '  Fils  de  Giboyer,'  and  here 
brought  boldly  upon  the  stage :  he  is  one  who  has  sac- 
ficed  every  thing,  even  his  identity,  to  the  order  of 
which  he  is  an  unknown  instrument,  from  sheer  lust  ot 
power  wielded  in  secret.  The  struggle  between  these 
two,  D'Estrigaud  and  St.  Agathe,  for  a  fortune  which 
neither  of  them  captures,  is  exciting.  In  the  end,  by 
a  sudden  irony,  the  beaten  D'Estrigaud  abandons  the 
world,  forgives  his  enemies,  and,  under  the  eyes  of  St. 


M.  Emile  Augier.  129 

Agathe,  takes  to  religion,  —  the  last  resort  of  rascals, 
to  paraphrase  Dr.  Johnson. 

While  no  one  of  these  four  comedies,  as  I  have  said, 
is  artistically  equal  to  the  '  Gendre  de  M.  Poirier,'  yet 
taken  together  they  give  us  a  still  higher  opinion  of 
M.  Augier's  genius.  No  other  dramatic  author  of  this 
century  can  point  to  four  such  pieces  :  no  other  drama- 
tist of  our  day  has  put  before  us  so  many  distinct  in- 
dividualities, and  shown  them  before  us  in  action,  each 
after  its  kind.  There  are  no  longer  preachments  ;  there 
are  a  bit  of  action  and  a  single  line  instead, — and  the 
evil  is  summed  up  better  than  by  a  score  of  sermons. 
The  dialogue  is  sharp  and  short :  it  has  a  satiric  wit, 
which  cuts  like  a  lash  when  it  does  not  bite  like  an  acid. 
The  wit  is  really  wit,  a  diamond  of  the  first  water,  trans- 
parent and  clear.  There  is  none  of  the  rough-and-ready 
repartee  only  too  common  in  many  modern  English 
plays,  the  rudeness  of  which  recalls  Goldsmith's  asser- 
tion, that  there  was  no  arguing  with  Dr.  Johnson ;  for, 
if  his  pistol  missed  fire,  he  knocked  you  down  with  the 
butt.  M.  Augier's  pistol  does  not  miss  fire. 

The  series  of  comedies  of  manners  which  I  have  here 
grouped  together  was  interrupted  in  1865  by  'Maitre 
Gue"rin,'  as  well  as  by  the  poetic  drama  'Paul  Fores- 
tier'  (1868).  'Maitre  Guerin  '  is  analyzed  at  length  in 
Mr.  Lewes's  valuable  volume  on  '  Actors  and  the  Art  of 
Acting.'  Although  showing  many  of  M.  Augier's  ever- 
admirable  qualities,  it  is  lacking  in  the  symmetry  of 
the  '  Gendre  de  M.  Poirier '  and  in  the  sharp  savor  of 
the  later  satires  :  it  pales  by  the  side  of  either.  In  the 
same  year  (1869)  that  he  brought  out  'Lions  et  Re- 
nards '  he  gave  us  also  the  '  Postscriptum,'  one  of  the 
brightest  and  most  brilliant  little  one-act  comedies  in 


1 30  French  Dramatists. 

any  language,  and  to  be  warmly  recommended  to 
American  readers.  The  next  year  came  the  war  with 
Prussia  and  the  two  sieges  of  Paris. 

The  first  play  which  M.  Victorien  Sardou  brought 
out  after  France  had  gone  through  these  terribles  trials 
was  the  trivial  '  Roi  Carotte,'  a  fairy  spectacle ;  and  the 
second  was  the  illiberal  and  re-actionary  '  Rabagas.'  M. 
Angler's  first  play  was  the  stirring  and  patriotic  'Jean 
de  Thommeray  '  (1873) :  love  for  home  and  love  for  the 
fatherland  are  rarely  separated.  'Jean  de  Thommeray' 
was  a  series  of  energetic  pictures  of  the  demoralization 
which  had  led  to  defeat  :  its  fault  was  that  it  was  only 
a  series  of  pictures,  and  not  a  homogeneous  drama.  M. 
Augier  had  borrowed  his  hero  from  M.  Sandeau's  tale  ; 
and  Jean  de  Thommeray  himself  was  almost  the  only 
link  connecting  the  succeeding  acts.  The  play  thus 
lacked  backbone ;  its  parts  were  not  knit  together  by 
the  bond  of  a  common  life  :  it  was  rather  a  polyp,  any 
one  of  whose  members,  when  detached,  is  as  capable 
of  separate  life  as  the  original  whole. 

M.  Augier's  later  plays  call  for  little  comment.  In 
1877  was  acted  the  '  Prix  Martin/  signed  by  M.  Augier 
and  by  M.  Eugene  Labiche.  It  is  not  noteworthy ;  and 
M.  Augier  has  himself  told  us  that  his  share  of  the 
work  was  confined  to  a  partnership  in  the  plan  and  to 
a  slight  revision  of  M.  Labiche's  dialogue.  The  year 
before,  M.  Augier  brought  out  'Mme.  Caverlet,'  and 
the  year  after,  the  '  Fourchambault.'  The  latter  was 
very  successful,  but  neither  is  in  M.  Augier's  best  man- 
ner. The  first  is  a  plea  for  divorce,  and  the  second  a 
plea  for  the  solidarity  of  the  family  ;  and  both  are  what 
on  the  English  stage  are  called  "domestic  dramas." 

In  all,  M.  Augier   has  written   twenty-seven   plays. 


f 

M.  Emile  Augier.  131 

great  and  small.  Of  these,  nine  are  in  verse.  Eight 
times  he  had  a  literary  partner.  At  least  ten  out  of 
the  twenty-seven  are  plays  of  the  first  order,  not  to  be 
equalled  in  the  repertory  of  any  contemporary  drama- 
tist;  and  of  these  ten,  three  —  the  '  Aventuriere,'  the 
'  Gendre  de  M.  Poirier,'  and  the  '  Fils  de  Giboyer '  — 
are  surely  classics  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  term. 
According  to  Lowell,  "  a  classic  is  properly  a  book 
which  maintains  itself  by  virtue  of  that  happy  coales- 
cence of  matter  and  style,  that  innate  and  exquisite 
sympathy  between  the  thought  that  gives  life  and  the 
form  which  consents  to  every  mood  of  grace  and  dig- 
nity, which  can  be  simple  without  being  vulgar,  elevated 
without  being  distant,  and  which  is  something  neither 
ancient  nor  modern,  always  new,  and  incapable  of  grow- 
ing old."  Judged  by  this  test,  the  'Aventuriere,'  the 
'  Gendre  de  M.  Poirier,'  and  the  '  Fils  de  Giboyer,'  are 
classics  beyond  all  peradventure. 

The  first  thing  which  strikes  one  who  surveys  M. 
Augier's  literary  career  is  the  combination  .of  original- 
ity and  individuality  with  great  susceptibility  to  external 
influence.  He  is  a  self-reliant  man,  but  quick  to  take 
a  hint.  He  was  at  first  accepted  as  a  disciple  of  Pon- 
sard ;  and  perhaps  the  '  Cigue '  did  owe  something  to 
'  Lucrece,'  and  '  La  Jeunesse '  to  '  L'Honneur  et  1' Ar- 
gent.' But  to  my  mind,  even  in  Augier's  comedies  of 
antiquity,  there  was  a  greater  obligation  to  Alfred  de 
Musset.  They  wrote  together  a  little  piece  of  no 
consequence ;  and  Musset's  influence  may  be  traced  in 
all  M.  Augier's  earlier  plays  of  fantasy,  in  which  the 
scene,  wherever  the  poet  may  declare  it  to  be,  in  reality 
is  laid  in  the  enchanted  forest  of  Arden,  or  in  that 


132  French  Dramatists. 


1  ^en.la  which  is  a  desert  country  by  the  sea.  In  the 
meal  construction  of  'Diane'  there  was  something 
ui  the  manner  of  Victor  Hugo  :  that  M.  Augier's  verse 
was  indebted  to  Hugo  for  its  freedom  from  the  eigh- 
teenth-century shackles  goes  without  saying.  Neither 
Scribe  nor  the  elder  Dumas  tempted  him  ;  but,  with 
Jie  first  work  of  the  younger  M.  Dumas,  M.  Augier 
saw  at  a  glance  the  prospect  it  opened.  Combined 
with  this  suggestion  of  new  worlds  to  conquer,  given 
by  M.  Dumas,  was  a  study  of  Balzac's  methods.  With- 
out the  '  Recherche  de  1'Absolu  '  we  should  not  have 
had  '  Maitre  Guerin,'  just  as,  if  there  had  been  no 
'  Dame  aux  Came'lias,'  there  had  also  been  no  '  Mariage 
d'Olympe.' 

I  have  ill  expressed  myself,  if,  from  the  paragraph 
above,  any  one  infers  that  M.  Augier  has  been  guilty 
of  any  servile  copying.  Nothing  could  be  less  true. 
He  is  a  man  of  marked  individuality,  and  in  his  works 
strongly  self-assertive.  Nothing  like  imitation  is  to  be 
discovered  in  his  dramas.  Another  man's  work  is  to 
him  only  an  exciting  cause,  to  use  a  medical  phrase. 
The  analogies  to  Ponsard,  Musset,  and  Hugo,  are  sub- 
tile and  probably  unconscious  ;  and  the  indebtedness  to 
M.  Dumas  is  comprised  in  the  assertion  that  the  author 
of  the  '  Dame  aux  Came'lias  '  turned  over  a  new  leaf  of 
the  history  of  French  dramatic  literature,  —  a  leaf  upon 
which  M.  Augier  wrote  his  name  with  his  own  pen. 
The  obligation  to  Balzac  is  no  more  than  that  M. 
Augier  studied  human  nature  with  Balzac  as  his  master. 
It  is  by  his  knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  by  his 
skill  in  turning  this  knowledge  to  account,  that  poster- 
ity judges  an  author.  M.  Augier  is  fit  to  survive  :  he  is 
a  great  creator  of  unforgettable  figures,  a  true  poet  in 


M.  £mile  Augier.  133 

the  Greek  sense,  —  a  "maker."  Giboyer  is  one  of  the 
most  puissant  characters  of  the  nineteenth  century ; 
he  seems  to  sum  it  up ;  he  walks  right  out  of  literature 
into  life.  He  is  no  mere  profile  silhouette,  such  as  M. 
Sardou  cuts  so  cleverly :  he  is  rounded  and  ruddy  flesh 
and  blood,  —  one  of  the  glorious  company  of  Sancho 
Panza,  Falstaff,  Tartuffe,  and  Captain  Costigan.  Scarce- 
ly less  extraordinary  in  their  absolute  truth  to  life  are 
D'Estrigaud  and  D'Auberive,  who,  like  Giboyer  himself, 
are  made  to  appear  in  more  than  one  work, — a  device 
Balzac  may  have  borrowed  from  Moliere.  Who  is  there, 
having  any  knowledge  of  French  character,  does  not 
see  the  marvellous  reality  of  Poirier  and  of  his  noble 
son-in-law,  the  Marquis  de  Presles  ?  And  is  not  the 
high-art  cook  whose  resignation  M.  Poirier  receives,  — 
is  he  not  a  worthy  descendant  of  the  coachman-cook 
who  was  in  the  service  of  Harpagon  ? 

M.  Zola  —  who  looks  forward  to  an  impossible  regen- 
eration of  the  stage,  from  which  convention  is  to  be 
banished,  and  every  thing  is  to  be  as  dull  as  every  day, 
in  the  interest  of  naturalistic  exactness  —  recognizes  in 
M.  Augier  a  creator  of  actual  characters,  and  calls  him 
the  master  of  the  French  stage.  "  Seraphine,"  says  M. 
Zola  of  the  heroine  of  the  'Lionnes  Pauvres,'  "is  a 
daring  figure,  put  squarely  on  her  feet,  of  an  absolute 
truth."  And  M.  Zola  praises  Guerin,  who  "has  a  final 
impenitence  of  the  newest  and  truest  effect."  He 
objects  that  some  of  M.  Augier's  characters  are  too 
good  to  live,  and  that  others  change  front  in  an  instant 
before  the  curtain  falls.  In  M.  Zola's  eyes  any  noble 
character  is  unnatural :  Colonel  Newcome,  for  instance, 
is  too  good  to  live.  But  his  other  criticism  has  some 
slight  foundation  :  there  are  characters  of  M.  Augier's 


134  French  Dramatists. 

who  reform  with  undue  haste,  —  in  '  Gabrielle '  for 
example,  and  in  '  Paul  Forestier.' 

M.  Augier's  women  are  all  admirable.  In  his  devo- 
tion to  the  family  he  has  drawn  woman  fit  to  be  the 
goddess  of  the  fireside.  He  excels  alike  in  the  young 
girl,  clear-headed  and  warm-hearted,  perfectly  jeune  fillc 
according  to  French  ideas,  but  with  a  little  spark  of 
independence,  with  a  head  of  her  own,  and  a  willingness 
to  use  it  if  need  be ;  and  in  the  clever  woman  of  the 
world,  skilled  in  all  the  turns  and  tricks  of  society, 
quick-witted  and  keen-tongued,  and  able  to  hold  her 
own.  His  women,  good  or  bad,  are  thoroughly  femi- 
nine and  human  :  they  are  neither  men  in  women's 
clothes,  nor  dolls ;  they  have  hearts  and  sex.  He  has 
drawn  brilliant  portraits  of  wicked  women,  —  Seraphine 
and  Olympe,  and,  above  all,  Navarette,  —  and  he  de- 
lights in  showing  their  true  womanhood,  and,  as  in  the 
'  Aventuriere,'  redeeming  them  almost  at  the  last  with 
a  few  words  of  simple  dignity  and  pathos.  In  none  of 
these  qualities  can  any  trace  of  foreign  influence  be 
detected  :  they  are  purely  personal. 

Purely  personal  also  are  his  hatred  of  hypocrisy,  his 
trust  in  the  future,  his  belief  in  progress,  his  respect 
for  toil.  To  these  last  two  qualities  is  due  his  liking 
for  modern  invention  and  discovery.  In  the  'Beau 
Mariage '  the  hero  is  a  chemical  experimenter ;  in  the 
'  Lions  et  Renards '  he  is  an  African  explorer ;  while  in 
the  '  Fourchambault '  he  is  a  specimen  of  the  highest 
type  of  mercantile  sagacity.  National,  rather  than  per- 
sonal, is  the  occasional  note  of  bad  taste.  In  general, 
the  French  pay  an  exaggerated  respect  to  the  Fifth 
Commandment,  to  balance,  perhaps,  the  frequent  frac- 
ture of  the  Seventh  :  so  the  scene  in  the  '  Contagion,' 


M.  Entile  Augier.  135 

where  the  hero  chances  on  his  mother's  love-letter  in 
the  midst  of  a  disreputable  supper,  comes  with  an  un- 
expected shock.  There  is  another  scene  in  the  '  Four- 
chambault,'  this  time  directly  between  the  mother  and 
the  son,  which  no  Anglo-Saxon  pen  could  have  written. 
But  these  taints  are  rare.  For  the  most  part,  M. 
Augier's  characters  live,  move,  and  have  their  being,  in 
a  clear,  pure  atmosphere,  as  different  as  may  be  from 
the  moral  miasma  which  hangs  over  Balzac's  landscapes. 
Mentally  and  morally  M.  Augier  is  a  well-balanced 
writer,  and  his  works  are  symmetrical.  We  see  in  him 
an  intellect  in  equilibrium,  well  poised  on  itself,  and 
sure  of  its  stability.  A  great  critic  has  told  us  that  the 
grand  style  is  not  the  so-called  classic,  with  its  finish 
and  polish  and  point,  but  something  larger,  freer, 
ampler ;  something  not  incompatible  with  a  homely 
realism  in  matters  of  detail,  —  if,  indeed,  a  truly  grand 
style  does  not  demand  a  rigorous  calling  of  the  thing 
by  its  right  name,  be  it  never  so  humble.  As  Moliere 
in  his  day  and  Beaumarchais  in  his  were  in  the  grand 
style,  so  is  M.  Augier,  —  each  in  his  degree.  The  pro- 
gressive civilization  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  per- 
haps as  hampering  as  the  pseudo-classic  formality  of 
the  seventeenth.  It  is  high  praise  to  say  that  the 
words  which  describe  one  of  M.  Augier's  characters, 
and  which  Herr  Lindau  aptly  applies  to  their  author, 
are  as  fitting  to  him  as  they  are  to  his  great  master, 
Moliere  :  "  Un  cceur  simple  et  tendre,  un  esprit  droit 
et  sur,  une  loyaute  royale."  A  simple  and  tender 
heart,  an  upright  and  sure  spirit,  a  royal  loyalty,  these 
are  noble  gifts  which  no  one  can  deny  the  author  of  the 
'Gendre  de  M.  Poirier,'  of  the  '  Aventuriere,'  of  the 
'Fils  de  Giboyer/  and  of  the  'Manage  d'Olympe.' 


CHAPTER  VI. 

M.    ALEXANDRE    DUMAS  fils. 

WITH  the  appearance  on  the  stage  of  the  younger 
Alexandre  Dumas,  a  fresh  force  came  into  the  French 
drama.  To  say  this  is  easy ;  but  to  qualify  this  force 
adequately,  and  to  define  its  limits,  is  no  light  task. 
The  two  other  dramatists,  each  in  his  way  remarkable, 
who  stand  to-day  with  M.  Dumas  at  the  head  of  French 
dramatic  literature,  are  comparatively  simple  problems. 
In  M.  Sardou  we  see  the  utmost  cleverness  and  tech- 
nical skill,  heightened  by  a  girding  wit :  he  continues 
the  tradition  of  Scribe,  adding  all  the  modern  improve- 
ments. In  M.  Augier  we  behold  a  high  and  genuine 
literary  value,  a  broad  and  humorous  humanity  he 
inherits  by  right  of  primogeniture  from  Moliere,  and 
observes  mankind  with  the  large  frankness  of  his 
master.  But  M.  Dumas  continues  no  tradition.  He  is 
that  rare  thing  in  literature,  —  a  self-made  man.  He 
derives  from  no  one.  He  expresses  himself,  and  with 
emphasis  :  he  is  a  personal  force.  Not  condescending 
to  the  ingenious  trickery  of  M.  Sardou,  and  never  rising 
to  the  lofty  liberality  of  M.  Augier,  his  place  in  the 
dramatic  hierarchy  is  not  so  readily  fixed  as  theirs,  his 
character  is  not  so  simple :  in  fact,  it  may  fairly  be  called 
complex  and  even  contradictory.  Here,  for  instance, 
is  a  bundle  of  inconsistencies  :  with  a  real  power  for 
creating  character,  there  is  no  dramatist  who  has  more 
often  and  more  boldly  than  he  brought  forward  the 
136 


M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fils.  137 

same  faces  and  figures.  While  declaring  in  one  volume 
that  he  knows  no  immoral  plays,  but  only  ill-made  ones, 
in  another  volume  he  asserts  that  the  stage  of  itself  is 
immoral.  Setting  forth  in  one  piece  the  right  of  assas- 
sinating the  wife  taken  in  adultery,  he  sets  forth  in  the 
next  the  duty  of  forgiving  her.  In  comedies  inherently 
vicious  he  pauses  to  preach  virtue,  but  with  a  blunt- 
ness  of  language  at  times  shocking  even  to  vice.  He 
has  written  the  'Ami  des  Femmes '  and  the  'Visite  de 
Noces,'  two  plays  which  imply  that  their  author  does 
not  suspect  what  "  good  taste  "  means  ;  and  yet  he  has 
been  elected  a  member  of  the  French  Academy,  con- 
stituted to  be  a  tribunal  of  taste.  The  historian  of  the 
'  Dame  aux  Camelias,'  and  the  discoverer  of  the  '  Demi- 
Monde,'  —  a  word  with  which  he  has  enriched  the 
vocabulary  of  the  world,  —  he  has  stood  forward  in  the 
name  of  the  Academy  to  bestow  prizes  of  virtue.  The 
son  of  a  prodigal  father  always  poor,  he  himself  is 
wealthy  and  frugal.  And  finally,  brought  up  in  all  the 
looseness  of  the  lightest  Parisian  society,  he  has  the 
Bible  at  his  fingers'  ends,  and  quotes  the  Scripture  as 
freely  as  an  orthodox  New-Englander.  With  such  a 
character  and  such  a  career,  M.  Dumas  is  one  of  the 
most  interesting  and  curiously  complex  figures  of  our 
century. 

The  literary  baggage  of  M.  Dumas  is  not  over  bulky. 
Exclusive  of  about  a  dozen  juvenile  novels  of  little  or 
no  value,  it  is  contained  in  eleven  volumes.  The  col- 
lected edition  of  his  plays  —  in  which  each  piece  was 
accompanied  by  a  preface,  wherein  the  author  frees  his 
mind  —  began  to  appear  in  1868 :  the  sixth,  and,  for  the 
present,  final  volume  was  issued  late  in  1879.  Under 
the  apt  title  of  '  Entr'actes '  a  collection  of  his  miscel 


138  French  Dramatists. 

laneous  essays  came  out  in  three  volumes  in  1878-79. 
The  dramaturgical  chapters  are  of  great  value  ;  the 
general  literary  papers  are  interesting ;  and  so  com- 
petent a  critic  as  M.  Auguste  Laugel  has  at  length, 
in  letters  to  the  Nation,  praised  the  political  portions. 
A  later  novel,  the  'Affaire  Cle"menceau,'  put  forth  in 
1867,  and  two  pamphlets  on  divorce  and  the  woman- 
question,  published  within  two  years,  complete  the 
list  of  M.  Dumas's  acknowledged  works.  More  or  less 
anonymously  he  has  had  a  hand  in  half  a  dozen  plays 
not  wholly  his  own :  chief  among  these  are  the  '  Sup- 
plice  d'une  Femme '  of  M.  Girardin,  and  the  '  Danicheff.' 
Another  play,  the  '  Filleul  de  Pompignac,'  acted  anony- 
mously, and  not  yet  included  among  his  collected  plays, 
seems,  however,  to  have  been  acknowledged  by  him.  It 
is  as  a  dramatist  only  that  M.  Dumas  is  now  to  be  con- 
sidered. Such  portions  of  the  books  mentioned  above 
may  be  passed  over  as  do  not  either  relate  directly  to 
the  stage,  or  reveal  peculiarities  of  the  author's  char- 
acter. As  far  as  may  be,  attention  will  be  confined  to 
the  twelve  important  plays  which  M.  Dumas  produced 
in  the  twenty-five  years,  1852-76. 

M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fils  was  born  in  Paris  in  July, 
1824,  a  few  days  after  his  father  was  twenty-one  years 
old,  and  a  few  years  before  his  father  had  begun  that 
career  of  literary  notoriety  and  inexhaustible  produc- 
tion which  was  to  end  only  with  his  death.  Like  his 
grandfather,  he  was  an  illegitimate  son,  —  a  fact  which 
seems  to  have  given  a  congenital  bias  to  his  future 
writings.  In  one  of  his  many  autobiographic  frag- 
ments the  elder  Dumas  referred  grandiloquently  to  the 
birth  of  his  son:  "The  29th  of  July,  1824,  whilst  the 
Duke  of  Montpensier  was  coming  into  the  world,  there 


M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fils.  139 

was  born  to  me  a  Duke  of  Chartres."  M.  Dumas  him- 
self, in  a  letter  to  M.  Cuvillier-Fleury,  which  serves  as 
a  preface  to  the  '  Femme  de  Claude,'  speaks  of  the  cir- 
cumstances of  his  birth  with  real  eloquence :  he  pro- 
tests against  the  law  which  marked  him,  an  innocent 
babe,  with  the  stigma  of  illegitimacy.  "  Happily  my 
mother  was  a  noble  woman,  who  worked  to  bring  me 
up,  my  father  being  a  petty  employee  at  twelve  hundred 
francs  a  year.  And  by  a  happy  chance  it  turned  out 
that  my  father  was  impulsive,  but  good.  .  .  .  When, 
after  his  first  successes  as  a  dramatist,  he  thought  he 
could  count  on  the  future,  he  formally  acknowledged 
me  as  his  son,  and  gave  me  his  name.  This  was  much. 
The  law  did  not  compel  him ;  and  I  was  so  grateful  to 
him  for  it,  that  I  have  borne  the  name  as  nobly  as  I 
could." 

The  boy  was  then  put  to  school  under  Prosper 
Goubaux,  one  of  the  authors  of  'Thirty  Years,  or  A 
Gambler's  Life,'  and  of  '  Louise  de  Lignerolles.'  His 
school-fellows  bullied  him  unmercifully  because  he  was 
a  natural  son.  "  My  torture,  which  I  have  depicted  in 
the  'Affaire  Clemenceau,'  and  of  which  I  did  not  speak 
to  my  mother,  so  as  not  to  worry  her,  lasted  five  or  six 
years."  These  years  of  suffering  gave  him  the  habits 
of  observation  and  reflection.  Removed  finally  to  an- 
other school,  he  regained  his  strength  and  his  growth. 
At  twenty  he  was  a  healthy  lad,  who,  having  known 
misery,  was  only  too  eager  for  pleasure  enough  to 
balance  the  account.  His  father,  making  and  spending 
hand  over  fist,  was  glad  to  have  his  son  share  in  his 
prodigalities ;  and  M.  Dumas  soon  plunged  headlong 
into  the  vortex  of  Parisian  dissipation.  But,  to  quote 
again  from  his  letter,  "  I  did  not  take  great  delight 


140  French  Dramatists. 

in  these  facile  pleasures.  I  observed  and  studied  more 
than  I  enjoyed  in  this  turbulent  life."  Yet  he  was 
swept  along  by  the  current  for  several  years,  writing 
juvenile  novels,  more  or  less  imitations  of  his  father's 
inimitable  fictions,  gathering  a  load  of  debts,  and  lay- 
ing up  a  stock  of  adventures  and  experiences  for  future 
literary  consumption.  In  all  his  earlier  plays  he  drew 
from  the  living  model.  The  '  Dame  aux  Camelias,'  and 
'  Diane  de  Lys,'  and  even  the  '  Demi-Monde,'  were,  as  he 
tells  us,  "  the  echo,  or  rather,  the  re-action,  of  a  personal 
emotion  to  which  art  gave  a  development  and  a  logical 
conclusion  happily  lacking  in  life."  One  may,  perhaps, 
hazard  the  suggestion,  that  since  M.  Dumas  has  ex- 
hausted his  personal  experiences,  and  has  had  to  rely 
altogether  on  his  invention,  as  in  the  '  Iitrangere '  and 
the  'Princess  of  Bagdad,'  his  plays  are  not  nearly  so 
good :  whence  we  may  fairly  infer  that  the  early  adven- 
tures of  the  man  were  necessary  for  the  full  develop- 
ment of  the  author. 

"  It  was  the  play  of  the  '  Dame  aux  Camelias  '  which 
began  to  free  me  from  the  slavery  of  debt  and  of  the 
society  to  which  I  owed  both  the  debt  and  the  success. 
I  promised  myself  not  to  fall  back,  either  into  debt  or 
into  this  society ;  and  I  kept  my  promise  at  the  risk  of 
being  called  ungrateful."  Written  when  the  author 
was  but  little  older  than  twenty-one,  the  novel  of  the 
'  Dame  aux  Cam61ias  '  had  been  published  with  striking 
success  just  before  the  Revolution  of  1848.  It  decked 
out  afresh  a  figure  of  which  the  French  seem  fonder 
than  any  other  race.  Manon  Lescaut  gave  birth  to 
Marion  Delorme,  and  Marion  Delorme  was  the  mother 
of  the  Dame  aux  Camelias,  who,  in  turn,  may  vainly 
deny  her  latest  offspring,  Nana.  Truly  it  is  an  un- 


M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fi 'Is.  141 

savory  brood.  The  popularity  of  the  novel  suggested 
its  dramatization.  The  elder  Dumas  thought  ill  of  the 
project ;  and  it  was  not  until  a  melodramatist  showed 
the  author  the  scenario  of  a  black  melodrama  which 
he  had  taken  from  the  novel,  that,  in  sheer  revolt  at 
such  treatment,  M.  Dumas  himself  set  to  work  at  it. 

In  eight  days  the  play  was  finished,  so  the  author 
tells  us ;  and  the  statement  does  not  seem  extravagant. 
As  in  the  case  of  the  '  Supplice  d'une  Femme/  which 
he  wrote  later  with  extraordinary  rapidity,  he  had  his 
material  all  under  his  hand  ;  and  the  play  was  not  com- 
edy, which  calls  for  slow  incubation,  but  a  drama  of 
simple  passion,  which  could  be  struck  off  at  white-heat. 
In  spite  of  the  speed  of  its  production,  the  '  Dame  aux 
Camelias,'  of  all  plays  which  an  author  has  made  out 
of  his  novel,  shows  least  traces  of  a  previous  existence. 
One  would  suppose  that  every  stage-door  in  Paris 
would  open  wide  to  receive  a  dramatization  of  his  suc- 
cessful novel  by  the  son  of  one  of  the  foremost  novel- 
ists and  dramatists  of  France.  But  it  was  more  than 
three  years  before  the  play  was  tried  by  the  fire  of  the 
footlights.  Rejected  by  nearly  every  theatre  in  Paris, 
it  was  at  last  accepted  at  the  Vaudeville,  only  to  be 
vetoed  by  the  censors.  Patronized  by  the  Duke  of 
Morny,  the  government  interdict  suppressed  it  until 
after  the  bloody  2d  of  December,  1851,  when  the  duke 
himself  entered  the  ministry.  He  believed  in  provid- 
ing sensations  for  the  people  of  Paris,  and,  if  possible, 
in  diverting  attention  from  politics  to  the  playhouse. 
The  '  Dame  aux  Came'lias '  was  brought  out  at  the 
Vaudeville  Theatre,  Paris,  Feb.  2,  1852.  It  was  an 
instant  success,  holding  the  stage  for  a  hundred  nights 
or  more.  It  has  since  been  revived  in  Paris  half  a 


142  French  Dramatists . 

dozen  times,  and  always  with  the  same  success.  A 
mutilated  and  innocuous  alteration  of  it,  prepared  by 
Miss  Jean  Davenport  (afterward  the  wife  of  Gen.  Lan- 
der), was  acted  by  her  in  America :  it  was  called  '  Ca- 
mille,  or  the  Fate  of  a  Coquette,'  an  absurd  title,  which 
shows  how  the  story  suffered  in  the  interest  of  Pro- 
crustean morality.  Later  the  piece  was  taken  up  by 
Miss  Matilda  Heron.  An  Italian  version  of  the  play 
served  Signor  Verdi  as  the  book  of  his  '  Traviata,'  an 
opera  of  which  the  lord-chamberlain  permitted  the  per- 
formance in  London  while  prohibiting  the  acting  of  the 
original  French  play. 

The  '  Dame  aux  Camelias '  was  at  once  simple,  pa- 
thetic, and  audacious.  It  emancipated  French  comedy, 
and  gave  it  the  right  of  free  speech.  To  judge  it  fairly, 
one  must  consider  the  comedies  which  held  the  French 
stage  before  its  coming.  There  were  Scribe  and  his 
collaborators,  with  their  conventional  and  machine-made 
works  ;  and  there  were  Ponsard  and  M.  Augier,  with 
their  plays,  poetic  in  intent  and  finely  polished,  but  as 
yet  reflecting  nothing  vital  and  actual.  The  great  merit 
of  the  '  Dame  aux  Camelias '  is,  that  it  changed  the  face 
of  modern  French  comedy  by  pointing  out  the  path 
back  to  nature,  and  the  existing  conditions  of  society, 
and  by  showing  that  life  should  be  studied  as  it  was, 
and  not  as  it  had  been,  or  as  it  might  be.  There  is  no 
need  to  dwell  on  the  character  of  the  play.  As  M. 
Montegut  pointed  out  over  twenty  years  ago  in  the 
Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  the  story  of  a  courtesan's  love 
may  be  a  poetic  subject  if  treated  with  elevation,  or 
it  may  be  a  degrading  subject  if  treated  realistically ; 
adding  that  M.  Dumas  had  chosen  a  middle  course,  and 
that  the  result  was  little  more  than  a  vulgar  melodrama. 


M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fils.  143 

Before  M.  Montegut  wrote,  the  subject  had  been  treated 
poetically  in  Hugo's  '  Marion  Delorme  ; '  since,  it  has 
been  set  forth  with  unspeakable  realism,  or  Naturalism 
rather,  in  M.  Zola's  'Nana.'  In  M.  Dumas's  play  we 
avoid  the  offensiveness  of  the  latter,  but  we  miss  wholly 
the  poetry  of  the  former.  On  one  of  its  revivals  a  com- 
petent French  critic  declared  that  it  bore  itself,  even  in 
its  old  age,  like  a  masterpiece ;  and  an  equally  compe- 
tent American  critic  recorded  that  he  had  had  a  hearty 
laugh  over  its  "  colossal  flimsiness."  It  is,  in  fact,  not 
to  be  taken  too  seriously.  It  carries  one  along  by  the 
rush  of  youthful  strength ;  yet  one  has  time  to  note 
phrases  horribly  out  of  tune,  and  to  detect  a  sort  of 
sentimentality  run  mad.  Its  morality  is  cheap,  not  to 
say  tawdry :  in  short,  the  play  seems  to  me  youthful 
in  the  objectionable  sense  of  the  word,  and  I  am  half 
inclined  to  think  that  the  Dame  aux  Came"lias  herself 
is  doing  exactly  what  she  is  best  fitted  for  when  she 
serves  as  the  heroine  of  an  Italian  opera. 

This  may  seem  a  harsh  judgment.  It  is  perhaps  only 
fair  to  add,  that,  although  the  '  Dame  aux  Camelias '  is 
not  at  all  a  work  of  genius,  it  is  a  work  which  could  have 
been  written  only  by  a  genius.  It  is  a  work  of  the 
Werther  type,  in  that  it  is  the  result  of  youthful  effer 
vescence  and  the  period  of  ferment  which  needs  must 
precede  the  riper,  richer,  purer  work  of  the  author's 
maturity.  Flimsy  it  is,  if  you  will,  and  of  a  shabby 
morality ;  but  it  is  not  insincere.  The  author  said  what 
he  thought  when  he  wrote  it,  or,  rather,  what  he  felt ; 
for  he  had  scarcely  begun  to  think  then.  When  he  did 
begin  to  think,  his  views  of  the  courtesan  changed 
entirely,  and  so  did  his  treatment  of  her.  It  is  in  the 
treatment  of  Marguerite  Gautier,  and  not  in  the  mere 


144  French  Dramatists. 

bringing  forward  of  such  a  character  on  the  stage,  that 
the  '  Dame  aux  Camelias '  is  immoral.  A  courtesan  is 
the  chief  figure  of  M.  Augier's  '  Mariage  d'Olympe,' 
and  no  play  is  more  moral.  Where  the  ethics  of  the 
'  Dame  aux  Camelias '  are  at  fault  is,  not  in  the  taking 
of  a  courtesan  for  the  heroine  :  it  is  in  the  failure  to 
show  that  so  self-sacrificing  a  courtesan  as  Marguerite 
Gautier  was  an  exception.  In  any  later  play,  M.  Dumas, 
had  he  chosen  to  treat  the  subject  anew,  would  have 
proved  conclusively,  and  by  a  few  simple  and  direct 
touches,  that  a  Marguerite  Gautier  was  as  rare  as  a 
white  blackbird,  and  as  little  likely  to  be  chanced  upon 
by  the  wayfarer.  Here  occasion  offers  to  say,  once  for 
all,  that  the  '  Dame  aux  Camelias '  is  not  now  to  be 
judged  by  the  light  of  Dumas's  later  plays.  It  has  no 
thesis ;  it  was  meant  to  point  no  moral ;  it  was  written 
off-hand  and  carelessly,  with  no  thought  but  to  tell  a 
touching  story  as  touchingly  as  possible. 

The  second  play  of  M.  Dumas,  '  Diane  de  Lys,'  calls 
for  no  detailed  criticism.  Like  its  predecessor,  it  was 
taken  from  an  earlier  novel ;  and,  as  M.  Dumas  himself 
suggests,  the  second  play  is  inferior  to  the  first.  It 
cost  but  a  few  days'  work,  and  was  written  to  pay  off 
lingering  debts ;  and  it  shows  that  the  impulse  which 
called  it  into  being  was  wholly  external.  It  is  a  manu- 
factured product,  a  re-working  of  old  material,  lacking 
wholly  the  youthful  freshness  which  gave  the  'Dame 
aux  Camelias '  so  individual  a  savor.  Paul,  the  hero, 
like  his  forerunner  Armand,  is  obviously  a  projection 
of  the  author's  own  profile.  Neither  Armand  nor  Paul 
comes  up  to  our  standard  of  a  gentleman.  In  his  first 
scene  with  Diane,  Paul  heedlessly  and  needlessly  betrays 
the  confidence  of  the  friend  who  has  just  presented  him 


M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fits.  145 

to  her.  Diane  herself  is  none  too  ladylike  :  she  seems 
a  sort  of  study  for  that  much  finer  portrait,  the  Duchess 
in  the  '  fitrangere.'  But  with  time  M.  Dumas's  touch 
had  become  firmer  and  more  delicate.  The  Duchess 
would  be  above  the  brutal  frankness  of  Diane,  who, 
when  her  husband's  sister  begs  her  to  guard  the  family 
honor,  and  to  remember  that  she  bears  the  family  name, 
retorts  point  blank,  "  There's  no  danger  that  I  forget  it : 
your  name  costs  me  enough.  I  paid  four  millions  for 
it." 

'  Diane  de  Lys,'  however,  did  one  thing :  it  freed  the 
author  from  debt,  and  enabled  him  to  devote  eleven  full 
months  to  the  execution  of  his  next  and  best  play,  — 
the  'Demi-Monde.'  Intended  for  the  Gymnase  Theatre, 
the  author  was  constrained  to  offer  it  to  the  Comedie- 
Fran^aise,  dexterously  choosing  his  time,  however,  so 
that  it  might  be  rejected.  Acted  at  the  Gymnase  in 
1855,  a  score  of  years  later  it  was  triumphantly  adopted 
by  Come'die-Frangaise,  where  it  is  now  a  chief  comedy 
in  the  current  repertory.  A  word  as  to  the  title,  before 
we  consider  the  comedy  itself.  By  the  phrase  demi- 
monde M.  Dumas  meant,  not  the  class  of  courtesans, 
but  the  class  of  exiles  from  society.  The  half-world 
is  peopled  by  those  who  have  fallen  from  grace,  and 
not  by  such  as  have  always  been  outcasts  and  sinners. 
It  is,  in  the  main,  an  association  of  repudiated  wives. 
As  de  Jalin,  the  witty  Parisian  of  the  play,  tells  de 
Nanjac,  the  soldier  just  fresh  from  Algeria,  "The  first 
wife  who  was  thrust  from  the  door  went  to  hide  her 
shame,  and  weep  over  her  sin,  in  the  most  sombre  retreat 
she  could  find  ;  but  —  the  second  ?  The  second  set  out 
to  find  the  first ;  and,  when  they  were  two,  they  called 
their  fault  a  misfortune,  and  their  crime  an  error ;  and 


146  Frcncli  Dramatists. 

they  began  to  console  and  excuse  each  other.  When 
they  were  three,  they  invited  each  other  out  to  dinner. 
When  they  were  four,  they  had  a  quadrille."  And  then 
de  Jalin  goes  on  to  account  for  the  later  recruits,  — 
imitation  widows,  and  brevet  wives:  "in  short,  all  the 
women  who  wish  to  have  it  believed  that  they  have  been 
what  they  are  not,  and  who  do  not  wish  to  appear  what 
they  are."  There  is  a  distinct  boundary-line  between 
this  society  and  that  of  the  venal  courtesans  who  have 
since  arrogated  to  themselves  the  title  of  the  demi- 
monde. There  is  an  equally  distinct  boundary-line  be 
tween  this  society  and  the  real  monde, — the  world  of 
fashion  and  society  at  large :  "  it  is  to  be  known  best 
of  all,"  says  de  Jalin,  "  by  the  absence  of  the  husband." 
In  what  is  the  most  celebrated  speech  in  the  comedy, 
de  Jalin  likens  the  demi-monde  to  a  basket  of  peaches 
in  the  window  of  a  Parisian  fruiterer.  You  ask  the  price 
of  a  basket  in  which  each  peach  is  carefully  wrapped  in 
paper,  and  protected  by  leaves  :  these  peaches  are  thirty 
cents  apiece.  Alongside  of  this  basket  is  a  second,  in 
which  the  fruit  is  seemingly  as  good,  save  that  it  is 
somewhat  huddled  together ;  but  the  price  of  these  is 
but  fifteen  cents.  If  you  ask  why  there  is  this  differ- 
ence, the  dealer  lifts  one  of  the  latter  carefully,  and 
shows  you  a  little  spot  on  its  lower  side.  The  fifteen- 
cent  peaches  are  all  speckled,  and  the  doni-monde  is  a 
basket  of  fifteen-cent  peaches. 

The  play  sets  forth  the  struggles  of  a  clever  woman. 
Suzanne  d'Ange,  calling  herself  a  baroness,  to  get  out 
of  the  troubled  waters  of  this  doubtful  world  into  the 
haven  of  matrimonial  respectability.  M.  de  Nanjac,  a 
hot-headed  and  warm-hearted  young  soldier,  has  fallen 
in  love  with  her  just  after  his  arrival  from  Africa ;  and. 


M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fils.  147 

unsuspecting  her  past,  he  is  about  to  marry  her.  But 
his  friend  M.  de  Jalin  has  the  best  of  reasons  for 
knowing  her  to  be  unworthy ;  and  in  the  end,  by  des- 
picable trick,  he  opens  de  Nanjac's  eyes,  and  prevents 
Suzanne's  marriage.  The  '  Demi-Monde '  is  a  masterly 
play.  It  stands  the  threefold  test :  it  is  good  in  plot, 
in  dialogue,  and  in  character.  The  story  is  one  which 
we  follow  with  interest  to  the  finish,  with  a  growing 
desire  to  be  in  at  the  death.  In  dialogue  it  is  as  bril- 
liant and  as  metallic  as  any  M.  Dumas  ever  wrote.  The 
characters  are  splendidly  projected  against  the  dim 
background  of  a  dubious  society,  and  contrasted  one 
against  the  other  with  the  utmost  skill :  M.  de  Nanjac's 
heat,  for  instance,  sets  off  the  coolness  of  M.  de  Jalin. 
In  M.  de  Thonnerins  we  see  a  second  edition  of  the 
old  duke,  invisible  in  the  '  Dame  aux  Camelias  ; '  and  in 
Valentine  we  see  the  first  sketch  of  the  future  Iza  of 
the  '  Affaire  Clemenceau '  and  of  the  wife  of  Claude. 
The  chief  person  of  the  comedy,  Suzanne,  is  a  boldly 
drawn  character,  almost  worthy  of  a  place  by  the  side 
of  the  nobler  and  more  poetic  figure  of  M.  fimile  Au- 
gier's  '  Aventuriere  : '  four  years  later  she  re-appears 
with  a  hardened  outline  in  the  Albertine  of  the  '  Pere 
Prodigue.' 

M.  Dumas  is  fond  of  these  reduplications  of  a  favor- 
ite character.  He  confesses  that  he  took  a  certain 
Count  de  R.  as  the  model  for  Gaston  in  the  '  Dame  aux 
Camelias,'  for  Maximilien  in  '  Diane  de  Lys,'  and  Olivier 
de  Jalin.  The  same  character  also  appears  as  Rene"  in 
the  '  Question  d'Argent,'  as  M.  de  Ryons  in  the  '  Ami 
des  Femmes,'  and  as  Roger  de  Tald£  in  the  '  Danicheff.' 
If  the  author  had  not  told  us  distinctly  that  he  had 
copied  M.  de  Jalin  from  the  Count  de  R.,  one  would 


148  French  Dramatists. 

have  called  him  a  rib  from  M.  Dumas's  own  breast,  the 
more  especially  as  M.  Dumas  has  twice  used  the  name 
of  "de  Jalin"  to  sign  plays  to  which  he  did  not  wish 
to  put  his  own  name.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  the  author's 
liking  for  him,  one  cannot  help  thinking  him  a  con- 
temptible fellow.  He  is  lacking  in  the  instincts  of  a 
gentleman.  He  has  neither  delicacy  nor  frankness. 
He  ought  to  keep  a  secret  sacred,  but  he  leaks  by  in- 
sinuation all  the  time.  Granting  that  it  is  his  duty  to 
prevent  the  marriage  of  an  adventuress  to  an  honest 
man,  it  should  be  done  somehow  honorably  and  openly, 
not  underhand  and  stealthily,  by  ignoble  trickery. 
Surely  so  clever  a  man  as  M.  de  Jalin  could  find  some 
other  means  than  the  unworthy  device  by  which  he 
traps  Suzanne  into  a  confession  of  love  for  him.  And 
surely  nothing  is  to  be  said  for  the  brutality  of  his 
outburst  of  laughter  when  his  stratagem  has  succeeded, 
and  he  holds  her  in  his  arms  in  the  sight  of  the  man 
she  had  hoped  to  marry.  On  top  of  this  the  author 
goes  out  of  his  way  to  give  M.  de  Jalin  a  certificate 
of  honor.  As  the  curtain  falls,  M.  de  Nanjac  declares 
him  "the  most  honest  man  I  know."  And  even  M. 
Edmond  About,  reviewing  the  '  Demi-Monde '  in  the 
Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  called  M.  de  Jalin  a  type 
sympathetic  to  the  audience. 

The  '  Demi-Monde  '  is  the  model  of  nineteenth-cen- 
tury comedy,  just  as  the  'School  for  Scandal'  is  the 
model  of  eighteenth-century  comedy.  The  contrast  of 
the  two  plays  would  be  pregnant,  did  space  permit. 
The  seemingly  careless  ease  with  which  Sheridan  has 
sketched  his  characters,  and  the  airy  humor  which  in- 
forms the  whole  comedy,  make  us  accept  a  story  and 
special  scenes  far  more  dangerous  thar  any  thing  in 


M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fits.  1 49 

M.  Dumas's  piece.  And  yet  the  impression  left  by  the 
'  School  for  Scandal '  is  pleasant ;  while  the  '  Demi- 
Monde '  is  almost  a  painful  spectacle.  We  cannot  help 
liking  some  of  Sheridan's  characters,  —  Lady  Teazle 
for  instance,  and  Sir  Peter,  in  spite  of  his  uxuriousness, 
and  Charles  too ;  while  even  the  scandalous  college, 
after  making  due  allowance  for  the  tone  of  a  bygone 
century,  is  not  wholly  repulsive.  But  no  woman  in 
the  '  Demi-Monde  '  should  we  wish  a  wife  to  visit,  and 
no  man  in  it  should  we  care  to  shake  by  the  hand. 

It  was,  perhaps,  M.  About's  reproach, — that  in  the 
'  Demi-Monde '  M.  Dumas  had  painted  only  a  certain 
society,  and  not  society  at  large,  —  that  led  him  in  his 
fourth  play,  the  'Question  d' Argent,'  brought  out  in 
1857,  to  attack  a  more  general  subject.  It  is  a  play  of 
no  great  value,  much  inferior  in  interest  to  its  prede- 
cessors, but  differing  from  them  in  that  it  is  really  a 
comedy.  Both  of  M.  Dumas's  earlier  plays  were  dramas ; 
and  even  in  the  '  Demi-Monde '  the  situations  at  times 
are  on  the  verge  of  melodrama.  But  the  'Question 
d' Argent '  is  pure  comedy :  its  incidents  are  entirely 
the  result  of  the  clash  of  character  on  character ;  and 
its  central  figure,  though  marred  by  a  touch  too  much 
of  caricature,  is  one  of  which  any  comedy  might  be 
proud.  We  are  shown  boldly  and  with  novel  effect 
Jean  Giraud,  a  self-made  man,  with  unbounded  skill  in 
scheming,  and  no  sense  of  right  or  wrong.  He  is  a 
restless,  uneasy  speculator,  young,  and  already  very 
wealthy,  but  never  quite  sure  of  his  footing.  In  '  Cein- 
ture  Doree,'  and  again  in  the  'Effrontes,'  M.  fimile 
Augier  has  pointed  out  how  vainly  ill-gotten  riches 
can  live  down  the  bad  repute  of  t.ieir  origin.  In 
'L'Honneur  et  1' Argent '  Ponsard  was  emphatically 


150  French  Dramatists. 

moral  in  his  denunciation  of  peculating  financiers.  But 
Ponsard  was  serious  and  poetic ;  while  M.  Dumas  chose 
to  see  the  comic  side  of  the  speculator's  career,  and  to 
hold  up  to  ridicule  the  suddenly  enriched  snob.  Pon- 
sard preached  :  M.  Dumas  at  least  enlivened  his  sermon 
with  wit  and  humor.  The  comedy  is  less  tainted  with 
M.  Dumas's  views  and  theories  than  any  other  of  his 
plays  written  before  or  since :  it  is  more  wholesome ; 
and  it  might  be  read  or  seen  by  any  one  without  dam- 
age or  danger.  Unfortunately  the  fable  is  weak ;  and 
the  figure  of  the  financier, —  who  believes  that  money  is 
absolute  monarch, — though  boldly  outlined,  is  not  always 
artistically  filled  in. 

"  Here  is  a  comedy  for  which  I  confess  my  predilec- 
tion :  this  comes,  perhaps,  from  its  having  cost  me  a 
great  deal  of  work,"  writes  M.  Dumas  at  the  head  of 
the  preface  of  the  'Fils  Naturel,'  acted  in  1858  at  the 
Gymnase,  and,  like  the  '  Demi-Monde,'  revived  at  the 
Theatre  Frangais  a  score  of  years  later.  In  the  last 
century  the  founder  of  modern  drama,  Diderot,  wrote 
a  '  Natural  Son,'  which  was  the  illegitimate  father  of  a 
play  of  the  same  name  by  Kotzebue,  adapted  to  the 
English  stage  by  Mrs.  Inchbald,  to  the  American  by 
William  Dunlap,  our  first  playwright,  and  often  acted 
by  the  American  Infant  Roscius,  John  Howard  Payne. 
who  had  cleverly  amalgamated  the  Inchbald-Dunlap 
versions  for  his  own  use.  There  is  a  fine  theatrical 
situation  in  Kotzebue's  play,  when  the  natural  son,  see- 
ing his  mother  sick  unto  death  from  want,  takes  to  the 
highway,  and  puts  a  knife  to  the  breast  of  the  first 
passer-by,  —  his  own  father,  as  it  chances.  But  even  in 
technical  excellence  M.  Dumas's  play  does  not  yield  lo 
Kotzebue's.  It  is  an  admirable  speci.nen  of  stage-craft; 


M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fils.  1 5 1 

and  it  is  no  wonder  that  two  such  experts  in  diamatic 
art  as  M.  Sarcey  and  M.  Perrin,  the  director  of  the 
Theatre  Frangais,  should  incline  to  considering  it  M. 
Dumas's  masterpiece.  No  wonder  is  it,  either,  that  such 
praise  should  revolt  M.  Zola,  who  has  a  fresh  theory  of 
throwing  nature  on  the  stage  raw  and  crude  as  in  a 
photograph.  M.  Zola  holds  that  M.  Dumas  "  never  hesi- 
tates between  reality  and  a  scenic  exigency :  he  wrings 
the  neck  of  reality."  And  he  says  that  M.  Dumas  "  uses 
truth  only  as  a  spring-board  to  jump  into  space."  In  the 
'  Fils  Naturel,'  for  the  first  time,  M.  Dumas  sought  to 
set  a  social  problem  on  the  stage ;  and  yet  nowhere  else 
has  he  shown  so  full  a  share  of  the  constructive  faculty 
which  is  the  birthmark  of  the  true  dramatist,  but  which 
M.  Zola  chooses  to  contemn. 

Kotzebue  had  treated  the  demand  of  the  illegitimate 
child  for  bread  for  physical  support  :  M.  Dumas  chose 
rather  to  consider  his  claim  to  a  place  in  his  father's 
family,  and  his  right  to  his  father's  name.  M.  Dumas 
has  a  prologue  specially  to  show  how  it  was  that 
his  young  hero  had  a  large  fortune  left  to  him  by  a 
stranger.  Then  in  the  play  we  have  the  story  over 
again  of  d'Alembert  and  Mme.  Tencin  :  the  natural 
son  first  seeks  his  parent's  name,  and  then  refuses  it. 
The  play  is  a  model  of  equilibrium.  In  the  first  half 
we  see  the  hero  gradually  discovering  his  illegitimacy. 
At  the  end  of  the  first  act  he  is  told  his  father's  name. 

"Where  are  you  going?"  asks  his  informant. 

"  To  my  father's." 

"What  for?" 

"  Why,  to  see  him,  since  I  have  never  seen  him.  " 
And  on  this  exit-speech  the  curtain  falls.  In  the  next 
act  is  the  scene  between  the  father  and  the  son,  in 


152  French  Dramatists. 

which  the  former  refuses  to  give  the  latter  any  satisfac- 
tion whatever.  Then  in  the  last  half  of  the  play  we 
see  how  the  son  becomes  more  important  to  the  father, 
and  well-known  in  the  world  at  large.  Finally,  to  fur- 
ther his  own  interests,  the  father  offers  the  son  the 
name  he  refused  at  first ;  and  the  son,  in  turn,  refuses, 
preferring  to  keep  the  name  he  has  made  for  himself, 
—  his  mother's. 

The  choice  of  the  subject  and  title  of  the  '  Fils  Natu- 
rel '  by  M.  Dumas  was  scarcely  in  the  best  of  taste  : 
still  worse  was  the  name  of  his  next  play,  the  'Pere 
Prodigue,'  acted  in  1859  without  any  great  success. 
What  the  elder  Dumas  was  we  all  know.  He  was  truly 
a  prodigal  father.  His  son  is  reported  to  have  said  of 
him,  "My  father  is  a  child  I  had  when  I  was  young." 
But  the  bad  taste  is  confined  to  the  title :  in  the  come- 
dy itself  there  was  no  trace  of  unfilial  personality ; 
the  son  of  Dumas  was  not  a  son  of  Noah  to  uncover 
his  father's  nakedness.  As  the  '  Fils  Naturel '  tries  to 
show  the  result  of  depriving  a  son  of  his  father,  so  the 
'  Pere  Prodigue '  was  intended  to  set  forth  the  bad  effects 
of  giving  a  son  a  false  education  ;  and  thus  one  play 
completes  the  other.  The  '  Pere  Prodigue,'  however, 
is  not  remarkably  good  :  it  is  overladen  with  incident ; 
and,  as  a  French  critic  remarked  when  it  was  first  acted, 
it  might  almost  begin  with  the  second  act,  or  the  third, 
or  even  the  fourth.  The  picture  of  prodigality  in  the 
first  act  is  full  of  typical  touches,  all  compactly  accu- 
mulated, until  an  irresistible  effect  is  produced. 

The  same  highly-wrought  brilliance  is  to  be  seen 
throughout  the  play,  which  contains  one  of  M.  Dumas's 
most  successful  characters.  The  prodigal  father  is  in 
the  true  high-comedy  vein.  By  the  side  of  M.  Dumas's 


M.  Alexandre  Dumas  Jih.  153 

bull-headed  and  sentimental  heroes,  and  of  his  preter- 
naturally  witty  heroes,  —  projections  of  his  own  impulses 
and  cleverness,  and  reduplicated  to  fatigue, — is  a  series 
of  comic  characters  of  great  force  and  originality.  No 
dramatist  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  enriched  litera- 
ture with  more  amusing  comic  portraits.  The  prodigal 
father  in  this  play,  the  self-made  speculator  in  the 
'  Question  d' Argent,'  the  broken-down  and  philosophic 
artist  Taupin  in  '  Diane  de  Lys,'  the  clear-headed  and 
good-hearted  notary  Aristide  in  the  '  Fils  Naturel,'  the 
outspoken  Madame  Guichard  in  '  M.  Alphonse,'  and  the 
profligate  duke  in  the  '  fitrangere,'  —  these  are  figures 
firm  on  their  feet,  and  worth,  any  one  of  them,  more  than 
all  the  interchangeable  MM.  de  Jalins  and  de  Ryons. 

Better  by  far  than  these  mere  figments  of  cleverness 
are  the  fresh  faces  of  sprightly  and  self-reliant  young 
girls  seen  now  and  again  in  M.  Dumas's  comedies,  and 
bearing  a  family  likeness  one  to  another.  They  are 
somewhat  too  knowing  to  please  the  French  critics,  and 
they  have  a  little  too  much  decision  of  character.  The 
Mathilde  of  the  '  Question  d'Argent '  is  only  a  little  less 
decisive  than  the  Hermine  of  the  '  Fils  Naturel ; '  and, 
had  either  of  them  grown  up  in  the  demi-monde,  she 
would  not  have  been  unlike  Marcelle.  In  Jane  de 
Simerose,  in  the  '  Ami  des  Femmes,'  we  see  the  same 
type.  The  '  Ami  des  Femmes '  was  not  acted  until 
1864,  five  years  after  the  '  Pere  Prodigue  ; '  and,  although 
it  called  forth  greater  controversy,  it  had  no  greater 
success.  It  is,  in  fact,  by  far  the  poorest  of  M.  Dumas's 
plays.  There  is  really  little  or  nothing  to  admire  in  it : 
there  is  less  wit  than  usual,  and  no  action  to  speak  of. 
It  may  be  passed  over  with  the  remark  that  its  subject 
was  bad,  and  the  taste  with  which  it  was  treated  worse 


154  French  Dramatists. 

Its  subject,  indeed,  is  one  wholly  unfit  for  stage  treat- 
ment, unless,  as  M.  Dumas  sometimes  hints,  the  theatre 
ought  to  be  an  amphitheatre  for  gynecologic  clinics. 

Here  I  must  break  off  the  criticism  of  successive 
plays  to  consider  a  change  which  had  gradually  come 
over  M.  Dumas  himself.  In  all  the  comedies  written 
before  this  transformation,  even  in  the  '  Fils  Naturel,' 
Dumas  was  first  of  all  a  dramatist ;  and  the  writing 
of  the  best  play  he  could  was  his  aim.  Afterward 
he  became  a  moralist,  a  teacher,  a  leader  of  the  peo- 
ple ;  and  to  set  an  example  and  to  prove  something 
was  M.  Dumas's  object  in  writing  plays.  This  change 
in  the  author's  views  had  been  brought  about  by  a 
curious  change  in  the  man  himself,  —  a  change  which 
may  be  described  as  an  evolution  to  virtue  from  an 
environment  of  vice.  It  seems  as  though  M.  Dumas 
had  found  out  by  experience  what  most  other  men  are 
fortunate  enough  to  get  by  inheritance  and  training. 
Having  grown  to  manhood  without  strict  or  severe 
education,  having  seen  laxity  from  his  youth  up,  and 
having  lived  years  of  his  life  in  the  demi-monde,  where 
morality  is  but  a  word,  M.  Dumas  has  been  surprised 
to  discover  that  it  was  also  a  thing.  As  he  says  in  '  M. 
Alphonse,'  a  young  man  left  to  himself,  badly  brought 
up  and  badly  surrounded,  may  most  likely  fall  into 
errors  ;  "  but  little  by  little,  if  he  have  intelligence,  he 
will  learn  for  himself  what  others  have  not  taught  him." 
So  M.  Dumas  taught  himself.  He  knows  by  experience, 
as  one  may  say,  that  honesty  is  the  best  policy,  and  that 
vice  does  not  pay.  He  is  at  the  end  of  a  course  of 
practical  ethics ;  and  his  experiments  have  been  made 
in  corpore  vilo,  — on  his  own  body.  He  has  been  taught 
by  his  own  sufferings.  As  far  as  morals  go,  one  might 


M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fils.  155 

call  him  "a  self-made  man."  Of  course  there  are  many 
things  he  has  not  yet  found  out.  The  world  is  older 
than  he,  and  has  suffered  more,  and  likewise  learned 
more.  But  what  to  many  well-meaning  persons  are  but 
commonplaces,  M.  Dumas  holds  to  firmly  as  precious 
discoveries  of  his  own  ;  and  he  is  so  pleased  with  these 
discoveries,  that  he  seeks  to  cry  them  aloud  from  the 
housetop.  Like  all  converts,  he  has  undue  zeal.  He  is 
seized  with  a  burning  impatience  to  spread  abroad  the 
glad  tidings ;  and  to  this  is  coupled  an  emphatic  inten- 
tion that  they  shall  not  be  misunderstood.  In  all  his 
later  plays  there  is  the  viciousness  of  vice  and  the  virtu- 
ousness  of  virtue  in  every  third  line  :  unfortunately  his 
taste  has  not  always  improved  with  his  morals,  and  the 
other  two  lines  often  offend  more  than  the  one  line 
benefits.  M.  Dumas  has  always  shown  the  tendency 
toward  mysticism  not  infrequent  in  men  of  his  tempera- 
ment. Even  in  the  '  Dame  aux  Camelias  '  the  curtain 
finally  fell  on  a  quotation  from  the  New  Testament.  Now 
he  frankly  takes  to  preaching,  and  puts  his  audacity,  his 
patience,  and  his  ingenuity  at  the  service  of  the  strange 
system  of  sociology  which  he  has  evolved  from  his  inner 
consciousness.  His  skill  as  a  dramatist  is  bent  to  the 
making  of  purely  didactic  dramas.  He  comes  forth  in 
the  purple  and  fine  linen  of  the  stage  to  set  forth  a 
doctrine  of  sackcloth  and  ashes.  In  the  expounding  of 
his  new  views  his  style  is  harder  and  more  brilliant  than 
ever;  and  he  explains  his  latest  moral  kinks  with  no 
sign  of  sweetness  or  light,  but  with  great  rigor  and 
vigor. 

In  the  'Ide'es  de  Madame  Aubray,'  acted  in  1867,  and 
the  first-fruits  of  this  new  philosophy,  the  preacher 
fortunately  has  not  yet  overmastered  the  playwright. 


156  French  Dramatists. 

The  piece  is  a  marvel  of  polemic  literature,  a  model 
in  the  art  of  teaching  by  example.  Mr.  John  Morley 
instances  it  as  one  of  the  very  few  modern  plays  which 
Diderot  would  recognize  as  belonging  to  the  genre 
sJrieux,  which  began  with  his  own  '  Pere  de  Famille.' 
It  treats  an  important  subject  honestly  and  with  intel- 
lectual seriousness  :  there  is  none  of  the  petty  begging 
of  the  question  which  disfigures  two  other  works  on 
the  same  subject,  —  the  'Fernande'  of  M.  Victorien 
Sardou,  and  the  '  New  Magdalen '  of  Mr.  Wilkie  Collins  ; 
both  clever  men,  lacking,  however,  in  the  courage  and 
the  candor  needed  to  face  the  problem  fairly.  There 
is  a  fourth  work  of  fiction,  published  not  long  after 
M.  Dumas's,  which  approaches  the  subject  with  the 
same  appreciation  of  its  demands  and  its  difficulties. 
This  is  a  novel,  '  Hedged  In,'  by  Miss  Elizabeth  Stuart 
Phelps,  as  representatively  New  England  as  the  '  Ide^es 
de  Madame  Aubray '  is  French. 

It  is  of  course  a  mere  paradox  to  say  that  M.  Dumas, 
since  his  regeneration,  appears  to  me  as  a  typical  New- 
Englander ;  but  he  has  something  of  the  New-England 
spirit,  and  he  stands  at  times  in  the  New-England  atti- 
tude. He  recalls,  in  a  way,  both  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 
and  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes.  His  theology  is  in  essence 
Unitarian.  I  have  before-  made  mention  of  his  very 
New-England  knack  of  biblical  quotation  ;  and,  as  his 
recent  volume  on  divorce  shows,  he  is  as  prone  to 
search  the  Scriptures  for  a  text  wherewith  to  smite  his 
adversary,  as  any  of  those  chips  of  Plymouth  Rock  who 
"take  to  the  ministry  mostly."  Without  pushing  the 
analogy  too  far,  we  can  see  it  stand  out  plainly  when 
we  set  the  '  Idees  de  Madame  Aubray '  by  the  side  of 
'Hedged  In/  and  see  that  both  the  American  and  the 


M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fits.  157 

French  writers,  though  differing  greatly  in  mental  equip- 
ment, approach  the  subject  from  the  same  point  of  view, 
and  give  it  the  same  austerity  of  treatment.  M.  Dumas 
lights  up  his  logic  with  flashes  of  his  Parisian  wit ; 
while  Miss  Phelps  relieves  the  stress  of  undue  senti- 
mentality by  a  sort  of  imported  English  humor.  But 
these  are  externals. 

In  considering  the  problem  of  the  redemption  of  the 
woman  who  has  fallen  but  once,  each  author  gives  us  a 
picture  of  a  sincere  Christian  woman  who  believes  in 
the  gospel  of  doing  good.  Madame  Aubray  and  Mar- 
garet Purcell  are  close  enough  akin  to  be  twin-sisters. 
Each  of  them  has  a  child  of  her  own,  —  Mme.  Aubray,  a 
son  ;  Mrs.  Purcell,  a  daughter.  To  each  of  them,  abun- 
dant in  good  works,  comes  the  opportunity  of  befriend- 
ing a  young  and  unmarried  mother.  In  each  case  the 
father  of  the  nameless  child  re-appears  on  the  stage. 
Mme.  Aubray  and  Mrs.  Purcell  have  each  to  choose 
between  her  sense  of  duty  and  her  ardent  affection  for 
her  own  child.  Both  Miss  Phelps  and  M.  Dumas  fight 
fair ;  there  is  no  begging  of  the  question  ;  the  problem 
is  looked  in  the  face ;  the  objections  to  the  thesis 
are  plainly  shown.  M.  Dumas  even  turns  his  honesty 
to  advantage :  the  philosophic  observer  who  acts  as 
Greek  chorus  sums  up  bluntly  the  feelings  of  the 
average  spectator,  " c'est  raide"  —  "  it's  pretty  steep  !  " 
—  and  the  audience,  hearing  the  author  thus  give  vent 
to  their  own  verdict,  go  away  without  shock  or  resent- 
ment. For  in  the  French  play  the  actions  take  a 
more  personal  turn  than  in  the  American  novel :  Mme. 
Aubray  has  to  consent  to  her  only  son's  marriage 
with  the  redeemed  sinner,  while  Miss  Phelps  kills  off 
her  penitent.  It  cannot  be  said  that  either  play  or 


158  French  Dramatists. 

novel  has  a  satisfactory  ending,  or  that  the  conclusion 
of  either  is  in  any  sense  a  true  dcnofnncnt,  —  an  un- 
tying ;  and  this  because  no  work  of  fiction,  however 
clever,  can  at  best  do  more  than  show  one  way  of 
cutting  the  knot. 

Just  what  moral  M.  Dumas  meant  to  advance  in  his 
next  piece,  a  comedy  in  one  act,  called  the  'Visite  de 
Noces,'  and  acted  in  1871,  I  cannot  imagine.  It  is  an 
inquest  on  the  internal  corruption  of  man.  Perhaps  the 
verdict  is  just,  in  view  of  the  evidence  produced;  but 
the  impulse  of  a  healthy  man  would  be  to  let  such 
matter  drop  into  the  gutter,  where  it  belongs.  To  lift 
it  thence  is  to  stir  up  muddy  depths  of  degradation  to 
no  purpose. 

In  a  novel,  the  '  Affaire  Cle"menceau,'  published  just 
before  the  '  Visite  de  Noces,'  and  in  the  two  plays  he 
brought  out  after  it,  the  'Princess  Georges'  (1871)  and 
the  '  Femme  de  Claude'  (1873),  M.  Dumas  returned  to 
an  early  theme.  Indeed,  we  may  consider  *  Diane  de 
I.ys '  as  the  first  of  these  dramas  of  adultery  and  death. 
In  '  Diane  de  Lys '  and  in  the  '  Princess  Georges  '  the 
husband  kills  the  lover.  In  the  '  Affaire  Clemenceau ' 
and  in  the  '  Femme  de  Claude,'  in  which  M.  Dumas  has 
treated  a  situation  essentially  identical,  the  husband 
kills  the  wife.  And  in  a  later  play,  the  '  Etrangere,'  it 
is  the  husband  who  is  killed. 

Neither  the  '  Princess  Georges  '  nor  the  '  Femme  de 
Claude '  can  be  called  a  good  play,  or  even  a  well-made 
play.  Knowing  that  Mile.  Descle'e  acted  the  heroine 
of  each,  one  is  inclined  to  see  in  them  scarcely  more 
than  two  strong  parts.  The  thesis  in  each  case  has 
proved  too  heavy  for  the  plot.  In  the  '  Princess 
Georges  '  the  thesis  seems  to  be  the  duty  of  femi- 


M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fits.  159 

nine  forgivenness,  in  the  '  Femme  de  Claude  '  the  duty 
of  summary  justice.  I  say  seems ;  for  the  exact  target 
of  M.  Dumas's  bullet  is  not  unmistakable,  despite  much 
talk  about  it.  Unfortunately  the  theorist  got  the  bet- 
ter of  the  playwright,  especially  in  the  '  Princess 
Georges,'  in  which  two  ladies  of  the  highest  society 
explain  the  bad  character  of  the  Comtesse  de  Terre- 
monde  at  immoderate  length,  and  in  M.  Dumas's  own 
style,  with  recondite  historical  and  scientific  allusions  ; 
and,  shortly  after  they  have  done,  another  of  the  actors, 
this  time  a  notary,  takes  up  the  parable,  and  preaches 
another  page  of  the  same  sort  of  stuff.  After  reading 
these  diatribes,  with  all  their  pseudo-scientific  parade, 
one  can  scarcely  help  wondering  whether  M.  Dumas  is 
not  laughing  in  his  sleeve  at  us.  But  no :  I  think  his 
sincerity  beyond  dispute ;  only  —  well,  only  I  wish  he 
would  not  believe  in  himself  quite  so  emphatically.  If, 
indeed,  he  were  not  so  sincere,  there  would  be  only  one 
word  to  describe  his  attitude  with  exactness  ;  and  that 
word,  unfortunately,  is  yet  waiting  its  passport  into 
good  society  :  if  I  may  venture  to  use  it,  however,  I 
shall  say  that  M.  Dumas  has  sublime  cheek. 

In  this  very  '  Princess  Georges,'  the  general  verdict 
was  that  the  catastrophe  was  a  mistake.  The  Princess 
Georges,  knowing  that  her  husband  is  about  to  go  off 
with  an  adventuress,  and  knowing  her  own  helpless- 
ness, declares  her  intention  of  taking  the  law  in  her 
own  hands.  She  warns  the  jealous  husband  of  her 
rival  that  his  wife  has  a  lover ;  then,  when  the  hus- 
band of  the  Princess  Georges  is  going  into  the  trap 
which  the  jealous  man  has  set  for  the  unknown  lover 
of  his  wife,  the  princess  does  what  she  can  to  prevent 
his  going,  but  without  avail,  when  suddenly,  as  she  is 


160  French  Dramatists. 

clinging  to  him  ineffectually,  a  shot  is  heard,  and  we 
are  told  that  the  jealous  husband  has  brought  down  a 
young  man  whom  we  have  seen  making  juvenile  love 
to  the  adventuress.  Now,  this  ending  is  all  wrong,  and 
wholly  unworthy  of  M.  Dumas,  who,  however,  defends 
it  by  saying  that  the  princess  would  be  guilty  of  cold- 
blooded murder  if  she  let  her  husband  go  to  certain 
death.  This  is  all  very  true.  I  do  not  ask  that  the 
prince  should  be  shot ;  but  I  do  ask  that  M.  Dumas 
should  not  take  me  in  by  a  petty  trick  ;  that,  having  led 
me  to  think  that  the  prince  was  to  be  killed,  he  should 
balk  this  legitimate  expectation  by  a  wrench  of  proba- 
bility. M.  Dumas  can  afford  to  leave  such  clever  de- 
vices to  M.  Sardou  :  they  do  not  become  a  teacher  and 
a  preacher.  Unfortunately,  M.  Dumas  at  bottom  is 
governed  by  his  emotions  :  he  sees  things  passionately, 
and  drives  on  to  a  vehement  conclusion.  But  he  has 
even  more  than  average  French  logic.  He  always 
seeks  to  prove  —  to  himself  first  of  all  —  that  the  end 
his  feeling  has  arrived  at  is  the  only  orderly  one  in 
the  nature  of  things,  and,  indeed,  the  best  of  all  possi- 
ble endings. 

One  is  less  disposed  to  dispute  the  fatal  conclusion 
of  the  '  Femme  de  Claude.'  Emerson  tells  us  that  "the 
Koran  makes  a  distinct  class  of  those  who  are  by  nature 
good,  and  whose  goodness  has  an  influence  on  others, 
and  pronounces  this  class  to  be  the  aim  of  creation." 
M.  Dumas  reverses  this  :  he  shows  us  in  the  '  Femme 
de  Claude,'  and  elsewhere,  a  woman  by  nature  irredeem- 
ably bad,  and  of  evil  influence  on  all ;  and  on  this  class 
he  pronounces  destruction.  Mr.  John  Morley,  speaking 
of  the  startling  figure  which  dominates  that  tale  of  un- 
holy passion,  Diderot's  '  Religieuse,'  says  that  "it  is  a 


M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fils.  1 6 1 

possibility  of  character  of  which  the  healthy,  the  pure, 
the  unthinking,  have  never  dreamed.  Such  a  portrait 
is  not  art,  that  is  true ;  but  it  is  science,  and  that  delivers 
the  critic  from  the  necessity  of  searching  the  vocabulary 
for  the  cheap  superlatives  of  moral  censure."  M.  Dumas's 
science  is  not  as  deep  as  Diderot's,  but  the  attempt  is 
the  same  in  kind.  In  the  Valentine  de  Santis  of  the 
'  Demi-Monde  '  we  see  the  first  sketch  of  this  woman  ; 
in  the  Countess  de  Terremonde  of  the  '  Princess 
Georges '  we  have  a  half-length  ;  and  the  figure  re- 
appears at  full-length  in  the  Iza  of  the  'Affaire  Cle- 
menceau '  and  in  the  Cesarine  of  the  '  Femme  de 
Claude.'  Both  of  these  last  are  creatures  governed 
wholly  by  animal  wants  and  instincts ;  in  other  words, 
they  are  irresponsible  brutes  :  and  in  each  case  the 
husband  exercises  the  right  of  individual  justice,  and 
puts  her  out  of  the  world.  And  in  the  sociological 
pamphlet  called  'L'Homme-Femme,'  and  published  in 
1872,  between  the  'Princess  Georges'  and  the  'Femme 
de  Claude,'  M.  Dumas  dissected  the  same  female  phe- 
nomenon, and  came  to  the  same  conclusion  formulated 
in  the  phrase  "  Tue-la  !  "  —  "  Kill  her." 

In  'M.  Alphonse'  (1873)  one  may  note  a  return  to 
M.  Dumas's  earlier  manner,  or  at  least  a  temporary 
cessation  of  his  sociological  studies.  In  spite  of  its 
unpleasant  subject  and  the  weak-as-water  heroine,  the 
play  is  one  of  M.  Dumas's  best.  Its  characters  are  few, 
and  nervously  drawn.  In  the  M.  Alphonse,  whom  even 
the  coarse  Madame  Guichard  cannot  stand,  we  see  a 
sort  of  transition  type  from  the  passive  Tellier  of  the 
'  Idees  de  Madame  Aubrey '  to  the  active  duke  of  the 
'Etrangere,'  just  as  we  see  Claude  repeated  in  Montai- 
glin,  and  Jeannine  in  Montaiglin's  wife.  There  is  no- 


1 62  French  Dramatists. 

where  any  feebleness  in  outline.  All  M.  Dumas''s  char- 
acters,  like  their  creator,  believe  in  themselves.  The 
story,  which  is  simple  and  pathetic,  tells  itself  plainly ; 
the  action  is  not  overladen  with  philosophical  diatribes. 
M.  Dumas,  for  once,  reaped  the  benefit  of  his  own  im- 
provement in  the  formula  of  dramatic  construction. 
We  owe  to  him  the  cutting-short  of  long-winded  ex- 
positions and  the  rapid  rush  of  hurrying  action.  Un- 
fortunately the  inventor  of  this  improved  comedy  has 
taken  advantage  of  the  time  thus  saved  for  illicit  indul- 
gence in  metaphysical  stump-speeches,  and  for  the 
promulgation  of  the  gospel  according  to  St.  Alexandre. 
In  '  M.  Alphonse '  there  is  little  of  this  skirmishing 
along  the  flanks  :  he  sticks  close  to  the  issue  in  hand. 
The  teaching  of  the  play  is  only  the  plainer  for  this 
restraint.  "  A  good  work  of  art,"  Goethe  tells  us, 
"  may  and  will  have  moral  results  ;  but  to  require  of  the 
artist  a  moral  aim  is  to  spoil  his  work."  Now,  in  gen- 
eral, M.  Dumas  requires  of  himself  a  moral  aim :  so  long 
ago  as  1869  he  announced  his  intention  of  using  the 
stage  as  a  moral  engine.  He  seemed  to  think  that 
every  play  should  be  a  dramatized  Tendenz-Roman,  and 
that  every  statue  should  bear  a  lamp  on  its  head,  or 
in  its  hand ;  or  else  what  excuse  has  it  for  its  being  ? 
An  epigram  of  Mr.  Austin  Dobson's  is  apt  just  here  :  — 

"  Parnassus'  peaks  still  catch  the  sun  ; 

But  why,  O  lyric  brother  ! 

Why  build  a  pulpit  on  the  one, 

A  platform  on  the  other?" 

In  the  '  Dcmi-Monde '  can  be  seen  what  M.  Dumas 
could  do  before  he  had  bound  himself  by  this  new  law, 
and  in  '  M.  Alphonse '  what  he  could  do  when  he  chose 
to  loosen  its  coils.  When  he  rigidly  required  a  moral 


M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fits.  163 

aim  of  himself,  he  spoiled  his  work,  as  Goethe  told 
us,  and  as  we  can  see  in  his  next  play,  the  'fitran- 
gere.' 

M.  Dumas  himself  has  propounded  the  theory  that 
all  great  dramatists  have  built  their  plays  just  as  well 
in  the  beginning  of  their  career  as  at  the  end, — just 
as  well,  if  not  better.  The  faculty  of  dramatic  con- 
struction being  a  native  gift,  in  age  they  are  inclined 
to  push  too  far,  and  so  lack  spontaneity.  So  is  it 
with  the  author  of  the  '  Ekrangere,'  a  sorry  comedy, 
and  utterly  wanting  in  spontaneity  or  spirit.  I  think  I 
can  fairly  call  it  the  poorest  of  M.  Dumas's  plays,  and 
surely,  despite  its  moral  intent,  the  foulest.  There  is 
but  one  decent  man  in  the  play ;  and  he,  like  the  most 
of  M.  Dumas's  virtuous  heroes,  is  virtuous  with  a  ven- 
geance :  he  is  a  good  man  in  the  worst  sense  of  the  word. 
For  the  rest,  the  duke,  and  the  duchess,  and  the  rest  of 
the  gang,  — the  word  sounds  coarse,  but  is  exactly  expres- 
sive, —  we  have  no  feeling  but  disgust.  All  are  corrupt : 
there  is  a  general  odor  of  corruption.  A  miasma  hangs 
over  the  stage  when  the  curtain  is  up,  and  we  breathe 
more  freely  when  once  we  get  outside.  Of  the  plot 
there  is  not  much  more  to  be  said.  I  can  understand 
the  Englishman  who  told  M.  Sarcey,  when  the  Comedie- 
Fran^aise  acted  the  play  in  London,  that  it  had  no  com- 
mon sense.  Coming  right  after  so  perfect  a  piece  of 
workmanship  as  '  M.  Alphonse,'  one  scarcely  knows 
what  to  make  of  it.  As  far  as  one  may  disentangle  it, 
there  are  three  acts  of  talk  and  theorizing,  and  two  acts 
of  action.  This  is  the  true  Sardou  formula:  ard  the 
story  cast  into  it  was  not  M.  Dumas's  either ;  it  was  a 
blackening  of  the  'Gendre  de  M.  Poirier,'  the  master- 
piece of  MM.  Augier  and  Sandeau.  M.  Dumas  and 


164  French  Dramatists. 

M.  Augier  stand  at  the  head  of  contemporary  French 
dramatic  literature,  and  it  is  interesting  to  remark  how 
often  one  has  trodden  in  the  other's  tracks.  M.  Augier, 
having  more  and  higher  qualities  than  M.  Dumas,  a 
wider  reach  and  keener  insight,  has  not  had  the  same 
uniformity  of  success  :  in  the  final  and  fatal  shot  of 
the  'Manage  d'Olympe'  he  anticipated  the  "tue-la!" 
of  M.  Dumas  and  the  'Femme  de  Claude,'  just  as  he, 
in  turn,  used  the  mould  of  the  '  Fils  Naturel '  for  his 
'  Fourchambault.'  This  may  be  a  digression  ;  but,  in 
considering  the  '  Etrangere,'  I  cannot  help  wishing  for 
the  hygienic  breeze  that  blows  through  most  of  M. 
Augier's  manly  plays.  There  is  never  a  breath  of  poetry 
in  M.  Dumas's  dramas,  no  trace  of  imagination.  One 
is  never  lifted  out  of  matter-of-fact,  every-day  life  :  in  a 
measure  the  life  in  his  pieces  differs  from  the  life  around 
us  only  in  that  the  people  in  the  plays  are  rather  wittier 
in  speech,  and  worse  in  character,  than  those  in  reality. 
All  is  hard  and  dry  and  brilliant.  More  than  that,  every 
thing  is  narrow :  it  is  a  very  tiny  corner  of  even  the 
little  world  of  Paris  which  serves  as  the  stage  of  M. 
Dumas's  dramas  ;  and,  if  one  can  form  a  fair  idea  of 
Paris  from  these  plays,  then  one  may  well  wonder  and 
regret  that  fire  and  sword,  and  blood  and  iron,  left  one 
stone  on  another. 

The  scene  of  his  latest  play  —  the  'Princess  of  Bag- 
dad,' acted  by  the  Come'die-Frangaise  in  February  last 
—  is  not  even  in  this  little  corner  of  Paris :  it  is  in  some 
fantastic  capital  of  M.  Dumas's  own  discovery,  where 
ordinary  human  motives  have  ceased  to  govern,  and 
every  thing  goes,  as  in  a  dream,  by  contraries.  Indeed, 
the  play  is  a  sort  of  evil  dream,  a  nightmare.  It  was 
of  the  '  Supplice  d'une  Femme '  that  M.  Dumas  wrote, 


M.  Alcxandre  Dumas  fils.  165 

"  The  spectator  must  submit  to  this  play  as  to  an  attack 
of  fever,  feeling  its  truth  in  the  beatings  of  his  heart, 
and  only  recognizing  its  danger  afterward ;  that  is  to 
say,  too  late : "  but  these  words  fit  the  '  Princess  of 
Bagdad '  even  better  than  they  do  the  '  Supplice  d'une 
Femme.'  It  is  needless  to  analyze  the  doings  of  a  lot 
of  people,  all  of  whom  are  lacking  in  common  sense. 
Heroine,  husband,  and  would-be  lover  are  all  clean  daft, 
and  ought  to  be  sent  back  to  Bloomingdale  or  Colney 
Hatch,  where  they  would  find  seclusion  and  a  strait- 
jacket.  One  of  the  characters  is  called  a  millionnaire 
Antony,  referring  to  the  '  Antony '  of  the  elder  Du- 
mas. As  a  fact,  all  three  of  the  chief  characters  seem 
to  have  walked  right  out  of  the  pages  of  '  Antony '  half 
a  century  behind  time.  In  the  preface  to  the  '  Iitran- 
gere,'  M.  Dumas  discussed  the  question  of  naturalism 
on  the  stage,  and  took  occasion  to  praise  Moliere  for 
the  extraordinary  delicacy  with  which  he  had  treated 
so  indelicate  a  tale  as  'Amphitryon.'  In  the  '  Princess 
of  Bagdad,'  there  was  need  of  a  little  of  the  same  deli 
cacy,  instead  of  which  we  have  needlessly  plain  speech 
and  brutal  violence. 

In  the  foregoing  pages  all  the  acknowledged  plays 
of  M.  Dumas  have  been  dealt  with  :  besides  these,  there 
are  nearly  a  dozen  others  in  the  making  of  which  he 
has  had  a  hand.  He  has  retouched  his  father's  'Jeu- 
nesse  de  Louis  XIV.  '  and  done  over  his  father's  'Bal- 
samo.'  He  lent  his  skill  to  George  Sand  for  the 
dramatizing  of  the  'Marquis  de  Villemer.'  He  was  a 
silent  partner  in  the  '  Danicheff '  with  M.  "  Pierre  New- 
sky,"  and  in  the  'Supplice  d'une  Femme.'  To  him  is 
ascribed  the  whole  of  the  '  Filleul  de  Pompignac/  and 
a  half  of  the  'Comtesse  Romani,'  and  a  quarter  of 


1 66  French  Dramatists. 

'  Helofse  Paranquet.'  In  many  of  these  his  speech 
bewrayeth  him,  but  on  none  do  we  find  his  signature. 
He  has  nobly  respected  his  name,  and  it  has  never 
been  lent  to  joint-stock  literary  operations.  His  skill 
and  his  time  he  has  been  free  with,  but  his  reputation 
is  jealously  guarded. 

The  respect  which  he  pays  to  his  name  he  also  has 
for  his  art.  He  is  proud  of  his  business.  In  his  book 
about  divorce,  published  last  year,  he  constantly  op- 
poses his  calling  as  a  dramatist  to  the  vocation  of  the 
priest  he  is  addressing.  He  contrasts  church  and  stage  ; 
evidently  and  honestly  believing  that  in  the  contest 
between  them  the  stage  has  the  right  of  it,  and  gets 
the  best  of  it.  His  discussion  of  this  burning  question 
is  in  the  form  of  a  letter  to  the  Abb6  Vidier,  vicar  of 
St.  Roch.  He  has  great  dialectic  superiority  over  the 
abb6 ;  and,  although  he  tries  to  be  courteous,  he  does 
not  spare  satire  and  sarcasm,  until  the  poor  priest  is  in 
a  bad  way.  He  produces  the  impression  that  his  cleri- 
cal adversary  is  hopelessly  his  inferior,  and  that  the 
combat  is  unequal.  Just  as  one  may  see  in  the  preface 
to  the  '  Ami  des  Femmes '  a  supplemental  chapter  to 
'  L'  Homme-Femme,'  so  one  may  trace  in  the  preface 
to  the  '  Dame  aux  Camelias '  the  germ  of  this  plea  for 
divorce.  But  since  1868,  when  he  wrote  these  pref- 
aces, M.  Dumas's  style  has  sharpened,  and  his  author- 
ity is  greater.  He  has  wit  and  eloquence  :  he  appears 
in  these  pages  as  a  Bourdaloue-Beaumarchais.  Sur- 
passing his  eloquence  is  his  wit,  though  he  is  too 
conscious  of  it,  and  too  reliant  on  it:  as  George  Eliot 
says,  — 

"  Life  is  not  rounded  in  an  epigram, 
And,  saying  aught,  we  leave  a  world  unsaid." 


M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fils.  167 

M.  Dumas  half  hints,  at  times,  that  he  can  unlock 
the  gravest  of  problems  with  the  pass-key  of  a  clever 
phrase.  What  is  most  characteristic  in  this  divorce 
pamphlet  is  the  serried  logic  of  four  hundred  and  six- 
teen pages,  and  the  sudden  lack  of  logic  in  the  nine 
lines  of  the  four  hundredth  and  seventeenth  and  last 
page,  on  which  M.  Dumas  —  all  his  arguments  having 
hitherto  tended  to  show  the  need  of  a  modification  of 
the  French  law  until  divorce  may  be  had  under  some 
such  strict  limitations  as  obtain  in  New  York — con- 
cludes by  formally  asking  for  the  passage  of  M.  Naquet's 
bill,  which  he  has  cited  at  length  in  the  earlier  part  of 
the  book,  and  which  allows  a  freedom  of  separation 
shocking  even  to  an  Illinois  or  Connecticut  legislator. 

M.  Dumas's  latest  utterance  in  sociology  is  a  bulky 
pamphlet  of  some  two  hundred  pages  on  '  Les  Femmes 
qui  tuent  et  les  Femmes  qui  votent.'  This  discussion 
of  women  who  kill  and  women  who  vote  contains  little 
that  is  new  to  any  one  familiar  with  M.  Dumas's  other 
polemical  writings  :  it  is  as  characteristic  as  any,  but 
perhaps  a  little  more  extravagant  and  illogical.  There 
have  been  several  variations  of  the  Laura  Fair  case  in 
France,  and  there  has  been  a  reproduction  of  the  refu- 
sal of  the  Smith  sisters  to  pay  taxes.  From  the  first 
set  of  examples  M.  Dumas  argues  that,  until  the 
French  code  is  reformed  by  the  institution  of  an  action 
for  bastardy  and  the  re-establishment  of  divorce,  woman 
will  be  justified  in  taking  the  law  in  her  own  hands, 
and  acting  at  once  as  jury  and  judge  and  executioner. 
From  the  second  example  M.  Dumas  argues  that  woman 
suffrage  ought  to  be,  and  that  it  is  only  a  question  of 
time  how  soon  it  will  come.  His  answer  to  the  objec- 
tion that  woman  has  not  the  physical  force  to  defend 


1 68  French  Dramatists. 

her  choice  and  cannot  fight,  is  to  cite  (p.  102)  Jeanne 
de  France,  and  Jeanne  de  Blois,  and  Jeanne  de  Flandres, 
and  Jeanna  de  Hachette,  and  Jeanne  d'Arc,  and  to  add, 
that  "  no  one  of  these  women,  having  done  in  our  day 
what  they  did  in  their  own  time,  would  be  admitted  to 
elect  representatives  in  the  country  they  had  saved. 
This  is  very  comic."  To  the  objections  that  a  descent 
into  the  political  arena  would  rob  woman  of  her  charms, 
M.  Dumas  responds  that  she  would  vote  as  gracefully 
as  she  does  every  thing,  having  first  made  herself  "  hats 
a  la  polling-booth,  waists  a  la  universal  suffrage,  and 
skirts  a  la  ballot-box."  I  fear  that  our  own  reformers 
would  find  M.  Dumas  very  flippant. 

Among  the  consequences  which  would  follow  the 
decreeing  of  divorce  in  France,  M.  Dumas  told  us  in 
his  preceding  volume  on  that  question,  would  be  a  total 
change  in  the  French  drama,  as  adultery,  now  the  chief 
stage-stock  in  trade,  would  lose  its  importance  in  life, 
and  so  would  see  less  service  in  the  theatre.  If  M. 
Dumas  be  right,  we  can  only  wish  that  divorce  had 
been  established  before  he  began  to  write,  and  perhaps 
then  illicit  love  would  not  have  been  found  in  some 
form  in  every  one  of  his  plays.  There  is  adultery,  or 
the  attempt  at  it,  or  the  suspicion  of  it,  in  eleven  out 
of  twelve  of  M.  Dumas's  dramas.  Once  and  again  Paga- 
nini  chose  to  play  on  one  string  as  an  artistic  freak, 
but  he  owed  his  greatness  to  his  skill  on  a  violin  com- 
plete in  all  its  parts.  M.  Dumas,  though  his  violin  had 
four  strings  like  the  rest,  has  given  us  little  else  save 
solos  on  a  single  one.  He  is,  in  short,  a  specialist ;  and 
in  literature,  as  in  medicine,  a  specialist  is  often  danger- 
ous. An  illegitimate  child  himself,  the  result  of  illicit 
affection,  he  cannot  abandon  the  discussion  of  one  sub- 


M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fils.  169 

ject :  do  what  he  will,  his  thoughts  still  turn  to  it.  All 
his  powers  as  a  playwright  are  at  the  service  of  this 
peculiar  predilection  :  his  gift  of  seeing  things  theatri- 
cally ;  his  ability  in  handling  a  plot,  generally  simple, 
and  turning  frequently  on  a  single  strong  situation 
carefully  prepared  and  provided  for,  and  only  postponed 
to  come  at  last  with  double  force  ;  his  gift  of  charac- 
terization ;  his  skill  in  skating  over  thin  ice  ;  his  speech; 
when  needed,  vigorous  to  the  point  of  violence ;  his 
knack  of  breaking  the  force  of  all  objections  to  his 
conclusion  by  himself  advancing  them  ;  and  his  wit, 
which  cannot  be  denied,  though  he  is  far  too  conscious 
of  it,  as  any  one  may  see  who  notes  how  he  scatters  it 
broadcast  through  his  plays,  and  then,  for  fear  some  of 
it  may  have  fallen  on  stony  ground,  takes  care  that 
his  characters  compliment  each  other  on  their  clever- 
ness (and  one  may  easily  see  also  that  the  wit  is  M. 
Dumas's  own,  and  not  that  of  the  individual  character, 
in  spite  of  some  attempt  at  disguise), — all  these  remark- 
able qualifications  are  held  at  the  beck  and  call  of  his 
desire  for  the  contemplation  of  illicit  love.  He  even 
goes  out  of  his  way  to  make  wholly  unimportant  figures, 
shown  to  use  only  in  profile,  adulterers, — in  the  '  Fils 
Naturel,'  for  instance,  and  the  'Princess  Georges.' 
No  wonder  he  warns  us  not  to  take  our  daughters  to 
the  theatre.  Goethe,  it  is  true,  gave  much  the  same 
advice.  M.  Dumas  says  he  respects  the  maiden  too 
much  to  bid  her  to  his  plays,  and  he  respects  his  art 
too  much  to  write  for  maidens.  There  is  some  rea- 
son in  this  :  it  is,  at  least,  an  open  question  whether 
we  do  not  fetter  the  artist  too  tightly  when  we  insist 
on  bringing  all  literature  down  to  the  level  of  the 
school-girl.  While  we  may  admit,  however,  that  girls 


1 70  French  Dramatists. 

have  no  business  in  a  dissecting-room,  one  may  also 
protest  against  always  taking  the  stage  for  a  physio- 
logical laboratory.  Besides,  while  true  science  is  clean 
and  wholesome,  M.  Dumas's  is  neither.  As  M.  Fran- 
cisque  Sarcey  once  wrote,  "  He  gives  the  best  advice 
in  the  world  in  a  language  which  recalls  at  once  the 
manuals  of  physiology  and  the  Vie  Parisienne  of  Mar- 
celin."  And  a  sceptic  is  tempted  to  wonder  whether 
by  chance  M.  Dumas  has  not  gleaned  the  most  of  his 
science  in  the  Vie  Parisienne.  A  competent  critic  like 
M.  Charles  Bigot  doubts  M.  Dumas's  science,  and  thinks 
it  rather  a  hap-hazard  gathering  of  physiological  and 
psychological  orts  and  ends  picked  up  here  and  there  in 
stray  newspaper  articles.  The  scientific  spirit  itself  is 
utterly  absent.  One  may  doubt  that  M.  Dumas  knows 
whether  there  be  any  scientific  spirit  or  not.  In  de- 
fault of  it  he  is  fertile  in  hypothesis  and  theory.  Some- 
times he  gets  so  entangled  in  the  jungle  of  his  own 
philosophy,  that  it  is  difficult  to  discover  his  where- 
abouts. Yet,  as  a  French  critic  has  pointed  out,  he 
seems  to  have  had  in  turn,  if  not  at  the  same  time, 
these  three  theories  :  first,  love  rehabilitates  a  fallen 
woman  ;  second,  when  she  is  not  capable  of  rehabilita- 
tion, one  must  kill  her ;  and  thirdly,  woman,  anyhow,  is 
a  being  greatly  inferior  to  man,  who,  indeed,  may  be  said 
to  stand  intermediate  and  mediating  between  woman 
and  God.  It  is  to  prove  one  or  another  of  these  three 
hypotheses,  that  M.  Dumas  has  written  his  later  plays, 
which,  fortunately  for  us,  are  most  of  them  of  more 
value  than  the  doubtful  theories  which  called  them  into 
being. 

There  are  two  writers  with  whom  the  elder  Dumas 
is  to  be  compared :  one  is  Victor  Hugo,  because  they 


M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fits.  171 

together  led  the  Romanticists  ;  the  other  is  the  younger 
Dumas,  because  both  bear  the  same  name.  I  have 
already,  in  the  chapter  on  the  elder  Dumas,  given  his 
opinion  of  the  relative  qualities  of  Victor  Hugo  and 
himself :  it  is  fortunately  possible  also  to  give  his  opin- 
ion of  the  relative  qualities  of  himself  and  his  son,  of 
whom  he  was  truly  proud.  "  Alexandre,  being  my  son, 
was  born  with  a  few  of  my  good  points,  and  completed 
them  with  those  which  were  his  own.  I  was  born  in 
a  poetical  and  picturesque  age.  I  was  an  idealist.  He 
was  born  in  a  materialist  and  socialist  age :  he  was  a 
positivist.  In  one  play  only  can  our  different  manners 
be  traced :  it  is  the  first  he  wrote,  —  the  '  Dame  aux 
Camelias.'  ...  I  take  my  subject  in  a  dream :  he 
takes  his  in  reality.  I  work  with  my  eyes  closed :  he 
works  with  his  eyes  open.  I  shrink  from  the  world  at 
my  elbows :  he  identifies  himself  with  it.  I  draw : 
he  photographs.  People  look  in  vain  for  the  models 
of  my  characters :  they  might  almost  point  out  his  by 
name.  The  work  suggests  itself  to  me  through  an 
idea:  it  suggests  itself  to  him  through  a  fact."  A 
little  later  the  father  summed  up  the  son  in  these  three 
sentences,  with  which  we  may  leave  the  subject : 
"  With  all  this,  Alexandre  has  a  fault  which  will  ruin 
him  if  he  does  not  correct  himself  in  time.  Alexandre 
is  over  fond  of  preaching.  His  favorite  book  among 
the  works  of  Balzac  is  the  '  Medecin  de  Campagne,'  — 
a  magnificent  novel,  it  is  true,  but  one  in  vhich  theory 
takes  the  place  of  plot,  and  philosophy  of  action." 


CHAPTER  VII. 

M.    VICTORIEN    SARDOU. 

PERHAPS  the  most  prominent  of  the  French  drama 
tists  of  to-day  is  M.  Victorien  Sardou.  He  is  probably 
better  known,  both  in  and  out  of  France,  than  any  of 
his  rivals.  He  has  written  some  twoscore  plays,  good 
and  bad,  in  half  as  many  years  :  at  least  ten  of  those 
plays  have  met  with  emphatic  public  applause ;  and 
twenty  of  them,  more  or  less,  have,  at  one  time  or 
another,  been  acted  in  the  United  States.  He  is  just 
fifty ;  he  is  rich ;  he  is  the  youngest  member  of  the 
French  Academy ;  and  it  is  to  his  plays  that  he  owes 
his  riches  and  his  seat  with  the  forty  immortals. 

M.  Sardou  was  born  in  Paris,  Sept.  7,  1831.  His 
father  was  a  teacher  and  the  author  of  elementary  text- 
books. The  son  was  early  entered  as  a  medical  student, 
but  he  soon  gave  up  medicine  for  history.  Both  of 
these  early  inclinations  have  left  their  mark  on  the 
work  of  the  dramatic  author.  The  larger  and  ampler 
literary  style  of  his  two  historical  dramas,  '  Patrie '  and 
the  '  Haine,'  is  no  doubt  the  result  of  his  youthful 
reading ;  and  the  scientific  marvel  which  is  the  back- 
bone of  the  '  Perle  Noire '  possibly  came  within  his 
experience  while  he  was  preparing  to  be  a  physician. 
His  change  of  front  just  as  he  began  the  battle  of  life 
did  not  lighten  the  struggle.  The  ten  years  between 
1850  and  1860  were  years  of  misery  and  want.  M. 
Sardou  taught,  served  as  an  usher  in  a  school,  did  hack 
172 


M.  Victorien  Sardou.  173 

writing  for  d.ctionary-makers  and  in  cheap  newspapers, 
and  wrote  various  plays,  which  were  refused  right  and 
left.  But  in  1854  the  Ode"on  accepted  a  three-act 
comedy  in  verse ;  and  on  April  i  —  ominous  date  — 
the  '  Taverne  des  fitudiants '  was  hissed.  Like  many 
another  successful  dramatist,  M.  Sardou  saw  his  first 
play  damned  out  of  hand.  After  the  failure  of  this 
comedy  he  fell  back  into  obscurity.  He  planned  a 
series  of  semi-scientific  tales,  after  the  manner  of  Poe's, 
and  in  some  sort  anticipating  M.  Jules  Verne's  fantastic 
inventions  ;  but  only  one  or  two  of  them  ever  saw  the 
light.  The  '  Perle  Noire  '  is  one  of  these  :  it  is  a  neat 
little  story,  and  a  translation  of  it  was  published  not 
long  ago  in  an  American  magazine. 

In  1858  M.  Sardou  married  Mile,  de  Brecourt,  an 
intimate  friend  of  Dejazet.  At  the  house  of  the  cele- 
brated actress  he  met  Vanderbuch,  who  had  written 
several  plays  for  Dejazet ;  and  one  day,  struck  by 
M.  Sardou's  intelligence,  he  proposed  a  collaboration. 
The  two  dramatists  wrote  together  the  'Premieres 
Armes  de  Figaro ; '  and  the  play  was  at  once  accepted 
by  Dejazet,  for  whom  the  leading  part  had  been  con- 
trived. But  the  actress  was  out  of  an  engagement, 
and  vainly  offered  her  services  and  her  new  play  to 
manager  after  manager.  At  last,  toward  the  end  of 
1859,  sne  took  a  theatre  herself,  called  it  the  Theatre- 
Dejazet,  and  on  its  stage  acted  the  part  of  the  young 
Figaro.  The  play  was  a  great  success  ;  and  M.  Sardou 
soon  followed  it  by  others,  —  '  M.  Garat,'  a  study  of  the 
F;ench  revolutionary  epoch,  a  period  he  is  especially 
interested  in ;  and  the  '  Pres  St.  Gervais,'  which  in 
1874  was  re-arranged  to  serve  as  a  libretto  for  the  light 
and  tuneful  music  of  M.  Lecocq.  These  three  neat 


1 74  Frencn  Dramatists. 

little  pieces,  like  all  plays  written  for  Dejazet,  are  not 
so  characteristic  of  the  author  as  of  the  actress.  They 
are  cast  in  the  Dejazet  mould,  and  one  seeks  vainly  for 
the  Sardou  trade-mark.  Strong  or  original  dramatic 
work  was  out  of  the  question,  and  the  most  the  author 
could  do  was  to  show  his  ingenuity  in  variations  on 
the  accepted  air.  The  dramas  written  for  Dejazet  by 
M.  Sardou  were  the  only  new  plays  in  which  the  sexage- 
narian actress  was  successful ;  and  their  success  drew 
their  author  from  his  former  obscurity,  and  proved  his 
possession  of  the  dramatic  faculty,  —  the  rare  gift  of 
shaping  one's  work  exactly  for  the  exigencies  of  the 
modern  theatre ;  a  gift  which  the  greatest  genius  may 
be  without,  and  without  which  the  greatest  genius 
cannot  hope  for  success  on  the  stage. 

The  doors  of  the  Parisian  theatre  having  thus  been 
opened  by  Dejazet  to  M.  Sardou,  he  rushed  in  at  once 
with  long-repressed  energy,  and  produced  within  five 
years  (1860-64)  nearly  twenty  plays  of  one  kind  or 
another,  —  comedy,  farce,  drama,  or  opera.  This  haste 
was  its  own  punishment.  The  '  Papillonne,'  brought 
out  in  1862  at  the  Theatre  Frangais,  failed,  and  so  did 
most  of  the  others.  Two  of  the  score,  however, 
achieved  instant  and  lasting  success.  The  '  Pattes  de 
Mouche  '  and  '  Nos  Intimes '  were  both  first  acted  in 
1 86 1  ;  and  the  triumph  they  won  compensated  in  a 
measure  for  the  less  favorable  reception  of  their  fel- 
lows. These  are,  perhaps,  the  two  plays  of  their  author 
best  known  in  England  and  America.  Each  has  been 
adapted  to  our  stage  more  than  once.  '  Nos  Intimes ' 
was  turned  into  '  Friends  or  Foes  ? '  by  Mr.  Wigan, 
whose  version  has  been  given  in  New  York  as  '  Bosom 
Friends.'  Another  adaptation,  called  '  Peril,'  has  been 


M.  Victor ien  Sardou.  175 

acted  within  a  few  years  at  the  Prince  of  Wales's 
Theatre  in  London ;  while  at  the  other  theatre,  the 
Court,  which  then  sought  to  rival  the  Prince  of  Wales's 
as  the  home  of  the  higher  comedy  in  London,  there  was 
at  the  same  time  presented  '  A  Scrap  of  Paper,'  a  skil- 
ful alteration  of  the  '  Pattes  de  Mouche.'  It  is  no  small 
testimony  to  the  author's  skill  as  a  playwright,  that 
two  pieces  written  by  him  in  1861  to  please  the  public 
of  the  Vaudeville  and  Gymnase  theatres  in  Paris 
should  in  1877  hit  the  fancy  of  the  audiences  of  the 
Court  and  Prince  of  Wales's  theatres  in  London. 

In  the  next  seven  years  (1865-71)  M.  Sardou  pro- 
duced in  Paris  only  seven  plays,  including  three  of  his 
best  pieces.  His  literary  frugality  during  this  time 
reaped  its  due  reward  ;  for  not  one  of  these  plays  made 
a  fatal  failure,  and  most  of  them  had  a  warm  reception. 
In  1865  was  brought  out  the  '  Famille  Benoiton,'  the 
first  of  a  series  of  satires  of  society  as  it  exists  nowa- 
days in  France,  and  in  many  ways  the  best  of  them. 
It  is  a  very  vivid  and  vigorous  sketch  of  the  demorali- 
zation and  extravagance  of  men  and  women,  young  and 
old,  amid  the  corrupting  influences  of  the  Second  Em- 
pire. It  was  revived  at  the  Vaudeville  during  the 
Exhibition  of  1867,  to  keep  company  with  another  play 
of  M.  Sardou's  at  the  Gymnase,  '  Nos  Bons  Villageois,' 
which  was  the  second  in  the  series  of  satires,  and 
sought  to  portray  French  provincial  life  much  as  the 
typical  Benoiton  family  pictured  the  manners  and 
morals  of  the  monopolizing  metropolis.  These  two 
comedies  —  which,  with  the  '  Grand  Duchess  of  Gerol- 
stein,'  were  the  three  great  theatrical  attractions  Paris 
offered  to  the  thousands  of  strangers  who  came  there 
from  all  quarters  —  contain  some  of  M.  Sardou's  clev- 


1 76  French  Dramatists. 

erest  writing.  They  bi  istle  with  hits  at  the  times,  — 
sharp  enough  witticisms,  many  of  them,  but  somewhat 
out  of  place  surely  in  a  play  which  hopes  to  outlive  the 
year  of  its  birth.  The  success  of  both  pieces  seems, 
however,  to  have  encouraged  M.  Sardou  to  form  the 
practice  of  alluding  to  contemporary  politics,  art,  and 
society,  forgetting  apparently  that  much  of  what  is 
merely  timely  loses  its  interest  in  a  short  time  But  no 
trace  of  this  bad  habit  is  to  be  found  in  '  Patrie  ! ' — a 
historical  drama  brought  out  at  the  Porte  St.  Martin 
Theatre  in  1869,  and  likely  to  remain  as  the  firmest 
and  finest  specimen  of  M.  Sardou's  skill.  Its  scene 
was  laid  in  the  Netherlands  during  the  struggle  for 
independence ;  and  the  drama  was  appropriately  dedi- 
cated to  the  late  John  Lothrop  Motley. 

A  little  over  a  year  after  the  performance  of  '  Patrie ! ' 
the  war  with  Germany  broke  out ;  and  Paris  was  be- 
sieged, first  by  the  Prussians,  and  again  by  the  French. 
When  peace  was  at  last  restored,  the  first  play  M. 
Sardou  presented  to  the  public  of  Paris  was  the  '  Roi 
Carotte,'  a  trifling  and  tawdry  spectacular  fairy-tale,  set 
to  music  by  Offenbach.  It  was  not  literature  at  all, 
excepting  only  one  scene,  in  which  a  sudden  recalling 
to  life  of  Pompeii,  with  its  gladiators,  soldiers,  citizens, 
slaves,  and  hetaerae,  all  skilfully  contrasting  with  the 
same  classes  as  they  exist  nowadays,  served  to  show 
that  the  ruling  motives  of  human  nature  then  and  now 
are  one  and  the  same.  The  second  play  M.  Sardou 
brought  out  after  the  war  was  'Rabagas.'  During  the 
rule  of  the  Commune  the  playwright's  lovely  villa  on 
the  Seine  had  been  destroyed ;  for  this  reason,  and  for 
others,  he  hit  back  hard,  and  made  in  '  Rabagas  '  a 
powerful  but  brutal  assault  on  M.  Gambetta,  the  leader 


M.  Victor ien  Sardou.  177 

of  the  Republican  party  in  France.  Warming  to  his 
work,  he  wrote  a  second  attack  on  republican  institu- 
tions, setting  his  scene  this  time  in  this  country.  Al- 
ready in  an  early  comedy,  the  'Femmes  Fortes,'  he 
had  compared  the  manners  and  customs  of  America 
with  those  of  France,  greatly  to  our  disadvantage.  In 
his  '  Oncle  Sam  '  he  laid  on  the  blacks  and  whites  with 
so  heavy  a  hand  that  the  censors  forbade  the  produc- 
tion of  the  play,  as  insulting  to  a  friendly  nation.  But 
one  of  the  enterprising  managers  of  the  friendly  nation 
procured  the  piece ;  and  it  was  brought  out  here  in  the 
land  it  insulted  while  still  under  the  ban  in  France. 
When  acted  here,  it  was  at  once  seen  to  be  the  result 
of  the  most  amusing  ignorance,  giving  us  good  occasion 
to  laugh  at  the  author,  instead  of  laughing  with  him, 
and  showing  but  little  of  his  customary  smartness.  The 
words  which  Matthew  Arnold  uses  to  criticise  the  man- 
ner of  an  English  historian  toward  the  French  generals 
in  the  Crimean  war  can  fairly  be  used  here  to  charac- 
terize this  incursion  of  a  French  dramatist  into  Ameri- 
ca :  "  The  failure  in  good  sense  and  good  taste  reaches 
far  beyond  what  the  French  mean  by  fatuitt.  They 
would  call  it  by  another  word,  —  a  word  expressing 
blank  defect  of  intelligence  ;  a  word  for  which  we  have 
no  exact  equivalent  in  English,  —  bete" 

'  Andrea,'  which  served  as  a  stop-gap,  pending  the 
raising  of  the  interdict  on  the  satire  on  American 
society,  was  a  hastily-revised  edition  of  a  play  written 
to  order  for  a  charming  American  actress,  Miss  Agnes 
Ethel,  and  originally  brought  out  in  New  York  as 
'  Agnes  : '  —  one  would  think  that  M.  Sardou  had  cause 
to  be  thankful  to  America.  The  censors  soon  allowed 
the  performance  of  '  Oncle  Sam  ; '  but  the  comedy  was 


178  French  Dramatists. 

received  with  no  great  favor ;  and  indeed,  for  the  next 
five  years,  M.  Sardou  saw  little  of  success.  A  farce 
failed  at  the  Palais  Royal  in  1873,  another  at  the  Varie- 
tes  in  1874;  and  in  the  same  year  his  strong  but  repul- 
sive historical  drama,  the  '  Haine,'  was  brought  out  for 
but  few  nights  at  the  Gaite.  In  1875  'Ferreol'  had 
a  little  better  luck;  and  in  1877  'Dora'  met  with  an 
enthusiastic  reception  as  a  return  to  his  characteristic 
manner,  and  as  a  worthy  successor  of  the  'Famille 
Benoiton '  and  '  Nos  Bons  Villageois.'  Turned  into 
English  none  too  skilfully,  and  disfigured  by  the  need- 
less thrusting-in  of  jingoism,  'Dora,'  as  'Diplomacy,' 
has  been  acted  with  popular  applause  throughout  Eng- 
land and  America.  In  1878  M.  Sardou  sought  to  repeat 
his  success  of  1867,  and  to  set  before  the  visitors  to  the 
Exhibition  a  dramatic  dish  resembling  closely  the  fare 
which  had  proved  acceptable  to  their  predecessors  of 
eleven  years  before.  The  '  Bourgeois  de  Pont  d'Arcy  ' 
was  made  on  the  same  lines  as  '  Nos  Bons  Villageois,' 
and  satirized  in  the  same  style  the  petty  politics  of 
country  life.  The  later  play  was  not  so  well  made  as 
the  earlier  one :  its  fundamental  situation  was  most 
unpleasant ;  and  Parisian  and  provincial  play-goers  felt, 
with  Joubert,  that  comedy  ought  never  to  show  what  is 
odious.  The  piece  failed  in  Paris,  and  was  acted  in 
New  York  for  a  while  with  much  the  same  result. 

In  '  Daniel  Rochat,'  acted  by  the  Comedie-Franc.aise 
in  1880,  M.  Sardou,  true  to  his  habit  of  trying  to  tickle 
the  taste  of  the  hour,  and  to  set  on  the  stage  the  ques- 
tion of  the  day,  considered  the  so-called  conflict  of 
icligion  and  science.  When  the  author  of  'Oncle  Sam  ' 
and  the  '  Famille  Benoiton  '  tries  to  handle  so  important 
a  topic,  it  is  a  little  difficult  to  take  him  seriously ;  but 


M.  Victorien  Sardou.  179 

he  is  so  cle\  er,  that  he  compels  attention  at  least,  if  not 
admiration.  It  is  curious  that  the  adjective,  which,  when 
one  writes  about  M.  Sardou,  comes  of  its  own  accord 
to  the  end  of  one's  pen,  is  "  clever ; "  and  the  word  really 
sums  him  up.  Conviction,  sincerity,  truth,  —  all  these 
may  be  wanting  in  '  Daniel  Rochat ; '  but  there  is  no 
falling-off  in  cleverness.  Now,  a  really  great  writer  is 
not  clever,  he  is  something  more  and  better ;  and  to 
dwell  on  a  writer's  cleverness  is  like  insisting  on  a 
man's  good  nature :  if  he  had  nobler  qualities,  this 
would  be  taken  for  granted.  To  say  this  is  to  say,  that, 
whenever  M.  Sardou  tackles  a  living  issue,  he  may  be 
amusing,  but  he  is  not  likely  to  be  instructive.  In 
'  Daniel  Rochat '  his  treatment  is  at  once  insufficient 
and  superficial.  Having  attacked  the  church  in  '  Sera- 
phine,'  the  original  title  of  which  was  the  '  Devote,'  he 
now  defends  religion  in  '  Daniel  Rochat.' 

The  story  of  the  play  is  simple  to  baldness  :  Rochat, 
who  is  an  atheist  and  an  eloquent  politician,  meets  in 
Switzerland  two  Anglo-American  girls,  and  falls  in  love 
with  the  elder.  We  say  "Anglo-American,"  because  M. 
Sardou  seems  never  to  be  able  to  make  up  his  mind  as 
to  their  nationality  :  at  one  moment  they  are  English,  at 
another  American  ;  and  of  a  truth  they  are  all  the  time 
French,  M.  Sardou  apparently  thinking  that  to  let  them 
go  about  without  a  chaperone  was  sufficient  to  Ameri- 
canize them.  In  the  first  act  Rochat  proposes  ;  in  the 
second  they  are  married  civilly ;  in  the  third  she  insists 
on  a  religious  marriage  also,  which  he  refuses  ;  in  the 
fourth  he  tries  to  seduce  her  from  her  allegiance  to  her 
faith ;  and  in  the  fifth  they  agree  to  separate,  and  the 
curtain  falls  on  the  signing  of  the  application  for  a 
divorce.  Rochat  begins  as  a  conceited  snob,  to  turn,  in 


1 80  French  Dramatists. 

the  fourth  act,  into  a  contemptible  cur ;  and  Lea  is 
always  a  rather  priggish  young  person.  The  final  three 
acts  are  filled  with  the  bandying  of  argument  between 
the  two  ;  and,  as  M.  Sarcey  said  when  the  play  was  pro- 
duced in  Paris,  "the  fifth  act  repeats  the  fourth,  which 
repeats  the  third,  which  was  tiresome."  There  is  no 
decrease  in  the  technical  skill,  but  the  subject  is  fatal. 
We  are  not  interested  in  hero  or  heroine  ;  and  we  know 
that  in  real  life,  if  they  really  loved  each  other,  they 
would  not  have  parted :  either  he  would  have  so  en- 
dowed the  civil  marriage  with  solemnity  that  she  would 
accept  it,  or  else  he  would  have  put  his  pride  in  his 
pocket,  and  been  married  when  and  how  she  pleased,  — 
by  minister,  or  priest,  or  bishop,  or  pope,  or  rabbi,  or 
dervish,  or  what  you  will.  They  would  have  got  mar- 
ried somehow,  and  then  would  have  come  the  real  dra- 
matic struggle.  The  true  drama  looms  up  after  the 
fifth  act  of  M.  Sardou's  play,  had  it  ended  happily :  it  is 
in  the  rending  force  in  a  household  of  religious  antago- 
nism, the  wife  going  one  way,  and  the  husband  another. 
If  the  subject  is  to  be  set  on  the  stage  at  all,  it  is  here 
in  married  life  that  incidents  and  interest  must  be 
sought,  and  not  in  the  petty  hesitancies  of  two  people 
who  cannot  make  up  their  minds.  It  is  here  that  it 
would  have  been  sought  by  writers  honest  of  purpose, 
like  M.  Augier  or  M.  Dumas.  The  hollowness  of  M. 
Sardou's  protestations  of  a  desire  to  regenerate  his 
countrymen  by  a  dramatic  discussion  of  a  vital  issue  is 
shown  most  amusingly  by  the  fact  that  the  first  play 
he  brought  out  after  '  Daniel  Rochat '  was  an  amusing 
and  highly  indecent  farce  called  '  Divorc.ons,'  written  for 
the  Palais  Royal  theatre. 

In  this  brief  survey  of  M.  Sardou's  career  as  a  drama- 


M  Victor ien  Sardou.  181 

tist  during  the  past  twenty  years,  only  those  plays  have 
been  dwelt  on  which  demand  especial  attention.  The 
first  thing  which  suggests  itself,  when  one  looks  down 
the  list  of  his  twoscore  of  pieces,  is  the  great  variety 
of  the  styles  the  author  has  striven  to  succeed  in.  M. 
fimile  Augier  and  M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fits  have  con- 
fined themselves  to  comedy, — a  comedy,  it  is  true,  which 
sometimes  crosses  the  line  of  drama ;  but  the  apparent 
intention  has  always  been  comedy.  M.  Sardou  has 
written  comedies,  historical  dramas,  farces,  and  operas. 
In  farce  and  in  historical  drama  his  success  has  been 
slight.  Opera,  which  he  has  attempted  half  a  dozen 
times,  has  been  but  little  more  advantageous  to  him. 
Only  '  Piccolino,'  a  recent  setting  by  M.  Guiraud  as  an 
optra-comique  of  an  early  play,  seems  likely  to  last. 
The  '  Roi  Carotte,'  with  the  music  of  Offenbach,  and 
the  '  Pres  St.  Gervais,'  with  the  music  of  M.  Lecocq, 
are  already  forgotten.  '  Patrie  ! '  has  been  used  by  an 
Italian  composer  as  the  libretto  of  an  opera  called  the 
'  Comtessa  di  Mans.' 

On  recalling  M.  Sardou's  work  in  comedy  and  in  the 
other  departments  of  the  drama,  with  the  idea  of  detect- 
ing what  his  dominant  quality  may  be,  one  cannot  avoid 
the  deduction  that  it  is  cleverness.  Mr.  Henry  James, 
Jr.,  has  called  him  a  "  supremely  skilful  contriver  and 
arranger."  And  no  one  who  has  at  all  studied  M. 
Sardou's  plays  will  quarrel  with  Mr.  James's  other  asser- 
tion, that  he  is  "a  man  who,  as  one  may  phrase  it,  has 
more  of  the  light,  and  less  of  the  heat,  of  cleverness, 
than  any  one  else."  That  is  to  say,  M.  Sardou  is  very 
clever  :  he  has  cleverness  raised  to  the  nth,  if  I  may  so 
express  it,  and  he  has  little  or  nothing  except  clever- 
ness ;  but  it  is  the  cleverness  of  a  man  who  has  the 


1 82  French  Dramatists. 

dramatic  faculty,  the  theatrical  touch,  the  dramatizing 
eye.  And  just  what  this  precious  faculty  is,  M.  Sardou 
himself  has  told  us  in  his  speech  when  received  as  a 
member  of  the  French  Academy.  "  The  gambler  is  not 
more  haunted  by  dreams  of  play,"  said  he,  "nor  the 
miser  by  visions  of  lucre,  than  the  dramatic  author  by 
the  constant  slavery  of  his  one  idea.  All  things  are 
connected  with  it,  and  bring  him  back  to  it.  He  sees 
nothing,  hears  nothing,  which  does  not  drape  itself  at 
once  in  theatric  attire.  The  landscape  he  admires  — 
what  a  pretty  scene !  The  charming  conversation  he 
listens  to  —  what  good  dialogue  !  The  delicious  young 
girl  who  passes  by  —  the  adorable  ingenue  !  And  the 
misfortune,  the  crime,  the  disaster,  he  is  told  of — what 
a  situation  !  what  a  drama !  " 

This  dramatic  faculty  has  another  side  :  the  author 
who  has  it,  besides  unconsciously  dramatizing  all  he 
hears  and  sees,  has  also  an  innate  power  of  so  setting 
upon  the  stage  what  he  has  written,  that  the  specta- 
tors are  affected  by  it  as  he  was.  The  days  when 
a  dramatist  needed  merely  to  write  are  now  gone,  — 
gone  with  the  placards  which  may  have  served  to 
indicate  where  the  action  of  any  scene  in  Shakspere's 
plays  passed.  The  dramatic  author  of  our  day  has  to 
fill  the  eyes  as  well  as  the  ears  of  his  audience.  The 
stage-setting,  the  scenery,  the  furniture,  the  costumes, 
the  movements  of  the  actors,  the  management  of  the 
many  minor  characters,  often  mingled  with  the  action, 
in  short,  the  show  part  of  the  play, — all  this  is  now  of 
importance  second  only  to  the  play  itself,  and  often 
thrust  into  the  front  place,  to  the  almost  certain  failure 
of  the  production.  Play-goers  are  both  audience  and 
spectators ;  they  like  to  see  as  well  as  to  hear  :  but  they 


M.  Victorien  Sardou.  183 

do  not  care  to  see  a  show  at  the  expense  of  the  drama 
they  have  come  to  hear.  Now,  expert  as  M.  Sardou  is 
in  all  details  of  stage  management  and  of  mise-en-sc^ne, 
—  to  use  a  French  phrase  impossible  to  render  in 
English  with  exactness,  —  he  sometimes  has  pushed 
the  merely  spectacular  into  undue  prominence.  The 
'Haine,'  a  historical  drama,  and  the  '  Merveilleuses,' 
a  historical  farce,  both  failed  because  the  play  was 
smothered  into  insignificance  beneath  the  splendor  of 
the  show.  M.  Sardou  seems  to  have  thought  with  the 
First  Player  in  the  '  Rehearsal/  that  the  essentials  of  a 
play  were  scenes  and  clothes,  and  to  have  forgotten  to 
put  in  enough  human  interest  to  counterbalance  this 
excess  of  external  adornment.  The  plays  were  over- 
laden with  gold,  and  they  sank  when  they  sought  to 
swim. 

In  general  M.  Sardou's  extreme  cleverness  does  not 
thus  overreach  itself :  in  general  his  skill  in  setting  his 
subject  on  the  stage  serves  him  to  great  advantage. 
Consider  this  scene  in  '  Patrie ! '  we  are  outside  the  gates 
of  Brussels,  with  snowy  rampart  and  tower,  and  frozen 
moat  glistening  in  the  moonlight ;  a  Spanish  patrol 
crosses,  —  the  patriots,  who  are  in  consultation,  hide  as 
best  they  may,  —  another  patrol  is  heard  approaching : 
the  patriots  will  be  taken  between  two  fires ;  prompt 
action  is  needed  ;  as  the  second  patrol  passes  across 
the  stage,  every  man  in  it  is  silently  seized,  and  killed, 
and  his  body  is  thrown  through  a  hole  in  the  ice  of  the 
moat,  —  a  hole  at  once  filled  with  masses  of  snow,  so 
that  when  the  first  patrol  returns,  it  walks  unsuspect- 
ingly over  the  icy  graves  of  its  fellow-soldiers. 

Not  only  in  the  heavier  historical  dramas,  like  '  Pa- 
trie  ! '  is  this  skill  in  stage-setting  useful ;  for  it  is  almost 


184  French  Dramatists. 

as  imperatively  demanded  in  the  comedy  of  every-day 
lif  2.  Here  there  are  no  adventitious  aids,  no  moonlight, 
no  snow,  no  frozen  moat :  the  variety  which  charms  the 
eye  of  the  spectator  must  be  sought  in  the  constant 
and  appropriate  movement  of  the  actors.  A  long 
scene  between  two  characters  is  broken  by  numberless 
changes  of  position,  by  crossing  and  recrossing  the 
stage,  by  rising  and  sitting  down,  now  right  and  now 
left,  by  taking  advantage  of  the  conformations  of  the 
scenery,  and  the  placing  of  the  furniture.  All  this 
must  not  be  overdone :  every  movement  must  seem  to 
be  unpremeditated,  and  to  spring  naturally  from  the 
dialogue.  To  assist  in  the  delusion,  the  scenery  and 
the  accessories  are  all  carefully  considered  by  the 
author ;  they  are  to  be  found  set  down  on  his  manu- 
script ;  and  they,  and  the  movements  of  the  actors  which 
they  assist,  are  as  truly  part  of  his  play  as  the  words  he 
puts  into  the  mouths  of  his  characters.  M.  Charles 
Blanc,  the  eminent  art-critic  to  whom  was  allotted  the 
duty  of  replying  to  M.  Sardou's  reception-speech  at  the 
Academy,  took  occasion  to  declare  that  M.  Sardou  pos- 
sessed this  talent  of  misc-cn-scbie  in  the  highest  degree. 
It  is  a  talent,  "perhaps,"  he  said,  "too  highly  praised 
nowadays.  .  .  .  But  I  admire  the  skilful  ordering  of 
the  room  in  which  passes  the  action  of  your  characters, 
the  care  you  take  in  putting  each  in  his  place,  in  choos- 
ing the  furniture  which  surrounds  them,  and  which  is 
always  not  only  of  the  style  required,  —  that  goes  with- 
out saying,  —  but  significant,  expressive,  fitted  to  aid  in 
the  turns  of  the  drama," 

In  this  as  in  many  another  way,  M.  Sardou  suggests 
Scribe,  who  was  also  a  supremely  skilful  contriver  and 
arranger.  Scribe  was  passing  slowly  out  of  sight  as 


M.  Victor ien  Sarctou.  185 

M.  Sardou  came  into  prominence  ;  but  without  Scribe  M. 
Sardou  was  scarcely  possible.  In  the  rapidity  with 
which  they  gained  wealth,  in  their  many  successes,  in 
their  willingness  to  suit  the  public  taste  rather  than  to 
serve  any  rigid  rules  of  true  art,  in  their  conservatism, 
in  their  botirgeois  respectability  with  its  thousand  gigs, 
in  their  mastery  over  stage  technicalities,  in  their  fre- 
quent borrowing  of  material  from  a  neighbor,  in  the 
dexterity  with  which  they  can  play  with  an  audience,  — 
in  all  these  respects,  the  two  dramatists  are  alike.  If 
the  habit  obtained  nowadays  of  naming  one  writer  after 
another,  some  few  of  whose  obvious  qualities  he  might 
have,  —  as  Irving  was  at  one  time  the  American  Gold- 
smith, and  Klopstock  was  hailed  as  the  German  Milton 
(a  very  German  Milton,  as  Coleridge  suggested),  —  if 
this  habit  obtained  now,  M.  Sardou  would  be  the  later 
Scribe.  The  points  of  unlikeness  are  almost  as  many 
and  as  marked  as  the  points  of  likeness.  It  is  in  tech- 
nical skill  and  in  the  resulting  success  that  the  essen- 
tial similarity  lies.  But  M.  Sardou,  who  has  studied 
Scribe  to  the  end,  early  saw  that  the  simple  style  of  the 
dramatist  of  the  citizen-king  was  not  best  suited  to 
please  the  new  Paris  of  the  lower  Empire :  so  he  doubled 
the  French  playwright  with  the  Athenian  dramatic  poet, 
and  sought  to  be  Aristophanes  and  Scribe  at  the  same 
time.  It  can  scarcely  be  said,  however,  that  he  wholly 
succeeds  :  he  is  at  best  but  little  more  than  a  sort  of 
Pasquin-Scribe.  Yet  he  wields  a  lively  wit ;  and  1 
think  Heine,  who  hated  Scribe,  might  now  and  then 
have  shaken  hands  with  M.  Sardou. 

The  essential  similarity  between  the  two  playwrights 
is,  as  has  been  said,  the  extreme  cleverness  of  each, 
and  the  success  which  rewards  that  cleverness.  In 


1 86  French  Dramatists. 

another  important  point  is  the  likeness  between  them 
almost  as  striking, — in  a  willingness  to  make  over  old 
material.  Here  M.  Sardou  treads  in  Scribe's  footsteps. 
But  while  the  old  dramatist  was  open  and  honest,  and 
never  claimed  what  was  not  his  own,  the  younger  one 
has  been  more  than  once  sued  because  he  was  bearing 
away  in  his  literary  baggage  another  man's  property. 
It  has  been  shortly  and  sharply  said  that  M.  Sardou 
"  has  shown  real  power  in  the  creation  of  types,  while 
unhesitatingly  using  in  his  plots  the  commonest  effects  : 
he  carries  through  a  play  with  a  verve  and  a  rapidity  of 
movement,  for  the  sake  of  which  he  has  been  pardoned 
the  frequency  of  his  rememberings  and  borrowings." 

These  rememberings  and  borrowings  are  not  a  few. 
The  germ  of  the  '  Pattes  de  Mouche'  (1861)  is  to  be 
found  in  Poe's  story  of  the  '  Purloined  Letter ; '  the 
fourth  act  of  'Nos  Intimes'  (1861)  is  said  to  be  singu- 
larly like  a  vaudeville  called  the  '  Discours  de  Rentrde ; ' 
the  '  Pommes  du  Voisin  '  (1864)  is  taken  from  a  tale  of 
Charles  de  Bernard's;  'S&raphine'  (1868)  seems  to  be 
indebted  to  Diderot's  '  Religeuse '  and  to  Bayard's  '  Mari 
a  la  Campagne  ; '  '  Patrie  ! '  (1869)  owes  something  to  a 
play  of  Mary's;  the  story  of  'Fernande'  (1870)  is  to 
be  found  in  Diderot's  'Jacques  le  Fataliste;'  the  'Roi 
Garotte'  (1872)  was  greatly  indebted  to  Hoffman;  the 
American  'Oncle  Sam'  (1873)  would  not  have  existed 
had  it  not  been  for  two  stories  of  M.  Alfred  Assolant, 
who,  however,  lost  the  suit  he  brought  against  M.  Sar- 
dou for  a  share  in  the  profits  of  the  play ;  in  '  Andre"a ' 
(1873)  is  a  situation  from  M.  Dumas's  'Princess  Georges;' 
many  a  hint  for  'Ferre'ol'  (1875)  was  derived  from 
M.  Jules  Sandsau  and  from  M.  Gaboriau  ;  the  'H6tel  Go- 
delot'  (1876),  a  comedy  by  M.  Crissafulli,  of  which 


M.  Victor ien  Sardou.  187 

M.  Sardou  was  anonymously  joint  author,  was  founded 
upon  Goldsmith's  '  She  Stoops  to  Conquer ; '  and  the 
final  act  of  'Dora.'  (1877)  has  more  than  one  point  of 
resemblance  to  the  end  of  the  '  Aventuriere '  of  M. 
fimile  Augier. 

Besides  borrowing  freely  from  his  neighbor,  M.  Sardou 
has  more  than  once  repeated  himself,  and  is  evidently 
fond  of  falling  back  on  his  early  works,  and  presenting 
them  anew.  The  two-act  '  Pres  St.  Gervais,'  a  comedy 
in  1862,  becomes  a  three-act  optra-bouffe  in  1874.  The 
comedy  of  'Piccolino,'  played  in  1861,  re-appears  in 
1876  as  an  optra-comique.  These  are  of  course  avowed 
reproductions,  but  there  is  no  lack  of  unconfessed  but 
almost  equally  obvious  repetition.  There  is  in  the 
'Vieux  Gannons'  (1865)  a  strong  situation, — a  father, 
whose  child  is  ignorant  of  his  relationship,  is  so  placed 
that  he  dare  not  declare  himself;  the  same  situation 
re-appears  in  'Se"raphine'  (1868):  in  the  former  case 
the  child  is  a  boy,  and  in  the  latter  a  girl.  The  first 
acts  of  the  'Famille  Benoiton '  (1865)  and  of  'Oncle 
Sam '  (1873)  are  almost  exactly  alike.  The  fast  French- 
women in  the  first  play  and  the  impossible  American 
girls  in  the  second  are  exhibited  one  after  another :  a 
clever  French-woman  (a  part  taken  in  both  pieces  by 
Mile.  Fargueil)  acts  as  showman,  while  a  witty  French- 
man asks  the  right  questions  at  the  right  time.  And 
the  characters  of  the  two  comedies  resemble  each  other 
singularly.  The  witty  Frenchman  and  the  clever  French- 
woman take  part  in  both.  Uncle  Sam  himself  is  a  first 
cousin  to  M.  Benoiton  :  his  son  is  only  the  calculating 
young  Formichel,  and  the  trick  young  Formichel  plays 
on  his  father  finds  its  counterpart  in  the  trick  Uncle 
Sam  s  son  plays  on  him.  In  fact,  on  a  careful  compari- 


1 88  Fren;h  Dramatists. 

son  of  the  two  comedies,  it  seems  as  though  M.  Sardou, 
in  his  absolute  ignorance  of  this  country,  thought  that 
all  he  need  do  to  satirize  America  was  to  push  his  satire 
of  fast  French  society  a  little  farther.  '  Oncle  Sam  '  is 
the  '  Famille  Benoiton,'  only  the  dose  is  stronger,  more 
pungent,  more  acrid.  In  M.  Sardou's  first  assault  on 
the  bad  habits  of  the  United  States,  the  'Femmes 
Fortes'  (1860),  we  see  Americans  who  are  just  like 
those  in  the  '  Oncle  Sam '  of  fourteen  years  later,  and 
who,  like  them,  seem  to  have  walked  straight  out  of  the 
pages  of  'American  Notes.' 

There  is  to  be  seen  in  the  '  Femmes  Fortes  '  the  same 
clever  woman  of  great  common  sense,  who  re-appears 
in  both  the  'Famille  Benoiton'  and  'Oncle  Sam.'  In 
each  of  these  pieces  she  plays  the  part  of  Greek  chorus. 
In  '  Rabagas  '  she  is  the  dea  ex  macliina.  In  the  '  Pattes 
de  Mouche,'  perhaps  the  cleverest  of  all  of  M.  Sardou's 
clever  comedies,  she  is  the  protagonist.  In  each  of 
these  five  plays  the  same  woman  appears  under  differ- 
ent names  ;  and  in  each  M.  Sardou  lauds  her  cleverness, 
and  skilfully  lays  her  traps  for  her,  and  obligingly  insists 
on  the  victims  walking  into  them  blindfold.  In  the 
'  Famille  Benoiton  '  and  '  Oncle  Sam '  and  the  '  Pattes 
de  Mouche,'  the  clever  woman  is  accompanied  and 
assisted  by  a  clever  man  ;  and  in  '  Patrie ! '  and  '  Fer- 
nande  '  and  '  Nos  Intimes  '  and  '  Dora,'  the  clever  man 
is  all  by  himself,  and  has  to  get  things  settled  and 
straightened  out  without  any  aid  from  a  clever  woman. 
In  '  Fernande '  he  is  a  lawyer  ;  in  '  Patrie  ! '  he  is  a  soldier 
and  a  Huguenot ;  and  so  he  gets  a  backbone  and  a  solid- 
ity lacking  to  his  equally  clever  brothers  and  sisters. 
I  am  not  sure,  indeed,  that  the  Marquis  de  la  Trcmouille, 
the  Frenchman  in  'Patrie!'  is  not  the  most  charming  of 


M.  Victorien  Sardou.  189 

all  M.  Sardou's  characters.  He  is  strong  and  manly, 
and  true  to  life.  His  courtly  grace  and  vivacity  lighten 
and  brighten  the  sombre  gloom  of  '  Patrie  ! '  and  it  has 
been  suggested,  that,  if  he  or  some  other  of  his  country- 
men equally  debonair  had  appeared  also  in  the  '  Haine,' 
the  fate  of  that  powerful  and  painful  play  might  have 
been  more  happy. 

These  repetitions,  these  frequeni  rememberings  of 
himself,  and  borrowings  from  others,  are  pardoned, 
because  in  the  rushing  rapidity  which  M.  Sardou  im- 
parts to  his  play,  there  is  scarce  time  to  think  of  them. 
The  sin  at  worst  is  but  venial :  we  are  always  willing 
to  forgive  an  author's  theft,  if  he  but  steal  at  the 
same  time  the  Promethean  spark  to  give  life  to  his 
creatures.  This  M.  Sardou  seems  certainly  to  do.  His 
characters  are  full  of  motion,  and  as  life-like  as  may  be, 
although  they  are  rarely  really  alive  and  human.  His 
clever  men  and  women  are  always  seen  with  pleasure, 
because  M.  Sardou  is  clever  himself,  and  he  understands 
cleverness,  and  these  characters  are  but  projections  of 
himself.  All  his  minor  humorous  characters  are  skil- 
iully  sketched.  He  has  a  keen  eye  for  the  ludicrous, 
aiid  a  genuine  gift  of  caricature.  This  latter  quality, 
the  keen,  quick  thrust  of  the  caricaturist,  was  used  in 
moderation  and  with  great  effect  in  the  village  apothe- 
cary and  the  rustic  louts  of  '  Nos  Bons  Villageois,'  and 
in  the  professional  revolutionist  and  other  self-seeking 
political  agitators  of  '  Rabagas.'  But  the  dramatist's 
political  animosities  blunted  his  artistic  perception 
when  he  cast  the  central  figure  of  the  latter  play  in  the 
same  mould  which  had  served  for  its  minor  characters. 
In  structure  the  piece  is  weaker  than  any  other  of  its 
author's  important  plays  ;  and  the  character  of  Rabagas 


190  French  Dramatists. 

himself  is  an  overcharged,  self-contradictory  caricature. 
It  is  very  clever,  of  course,  and  one  can  readily  under- 
stand its  startling  success  at  first ;  but,  when  one  thinks 
over  the  conduct  of  Rabagas,  its  weakness  is  manifest. 
He  is  represented  as  a  type  of  the  uneasy  political 
lawyer,  using  the  tools  of  state-craft  to  carve  his  way 
to  fame  and  fortune,  — 

"  Ready  alike  to  worship  and  revile, 
To  build  the  altar  or  to  light  the  pile. 

Now  mad  for  patriots,  hot  for  revolution ; 
Now  all  for  hanging  and  the  Constitution." 

This  is  a  fine  subject  for  a  comic  dramatist.  Patri- 
otic hypocrisy  gives  as  good  an  occasion  for  grave  and 
thoughtful  humorous  treatment  as  religious  hypocrisy. 
Rabagas  might  have  been  worthy  to  hang  in  the  same 
gallery  with  Tartuffe.  But  Moliere's  creation  is  firm, 
and  broadly  handled,  and  consistent  to  the  end  :  M. 
Sardou's  is  cheap,  and  sacrifices  again  and  again  his 
consistency  for  the  sake  of  making  a  point.  It  is  a 
Punch-and-Judy  show :  the  figure  is  the  figure  of  Raba- 
gas ;  but  we  know  the  hand  of  M.  Sardou  is  inside  it, 
and  makes  it  move ;  and  we  recognize  the  voice  of  M. 
Sardou  whenever  it  speaks.  Its  movements  are  amus- 
ing, and  what  it  says  is  entertaining,  and  we  must  needs 
confess  that  the  showman  is  very  clever.  But  Moliere 
was  something  more  than  clever  when  he  drew  Tar- 
tuffe. And  if  this  comparison  be  thought  too  crushing, 
M.  fimile  Augier  was  more  than  clever  when  he 
created  Giboyer ;  and  M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fits  was 
more  than  clever  when  he  set  before  us  the  'Demi- 
Monde.'  Moliere  and  M.  Augier  and  M.  Dumas  worked 


M.  Victor ien  Sardou.  191 

with  heart  as  well  as  head  :  they  put  something  of 
themselves  into  their  plays.  M.  Sardou  relied  solely  on 
his  cleverness,  and,  if  the  assertion  may  be  ventured, 
on  his  spite. 

In  the  pieface  to  the  'Haine'  M.  Sardou  declares  his 
respect  for  woman,  and  his  worship  of  her.  Here  is 
perhaps  as  good  an  opportunity  as  any  to  say  that  M. 
Sardou's  plays  are,  for  the  most  part,  as  moral  as  one 
could  wish,  not  only  in  the  conventional  reward  of 
virtue,  and  punishment  of  vice,  but  in  the  tone  and 
color  of  the  whole.  He  has  his  eccentricities  of  taste 
and  of  morals,  such  as  we  Anglo-Saxons  detect  in  any 
Frenchman ;  but  he  never  panders  to  vice,  never  pets 
it,  pats  it,  and  plays  with  it  seductively,  as  M.  Octave 
Feuillet  is  wont  to  do.  With  the  present  method  in 
France  of  bringing  up  young  girls,  and  of  marrying  and 
giving  in  marriage,  the  dramatist  is  forced  frequently 
to  seek  for  his  love-interest  in  the  breaking,  actual  or 
imminent,  of  the  Seventh  Commandment.  But  more 
often  than  any  other  French  dramatist  of  standing  has 
M.  Sardou  sought  to  confine  himself  to  the  honest  love 
of  a  young  man  and  a  young  woman.  In  'Dora,'  in 
the  '  Ganaches,'  and  in  more  than  one  other  of  his 
comedies,  there  is,  if  one  strikes  out  a  few  grains  of 
sharp  Gallic  salt,  nothing  to  offend  the  most  fastidious 
Anglo-American  old  maid.  M.  Sardou's  young  girls 
are  charming.  One  does  not  wonder  at  the  fondness 
of  the  Frenchman  for  the  lily-like  innocence  of  the 
ingenue,  if  all  ingenues  are  really  as  innocent  and  as 
delicious  as  those  in  M.  Sardou's  comedies.  To  the 
healthy  American  the  ingenue  seems  almost  an  impos- 
sibility ;  but  M.  Sardou  endows  her  with  a  frankness 
and  grace  which  relieves  the  somewhat  namby-pamby, 


192  French  Dramatists. 

goody-goody  innocuousness  of  a  bread-and-butter  miss 
whose  only  preparation  for  the  duties  of  life  is  a  com- 
plete ignorance  of  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil. 
In  M.  Sardou's  hands  the  ingenue  is  neither  sickly  nor 
unwholesome :  she  is  confiding  and  engaging,  and 
timid  if  you  will,  but  charming  and  delightful.  M. 
Sardou,  in  announcing  his  great  respect  for  woman, 
says  he  has  always  given  her  the  best  part  in  his  plays, 
—  "  that  of  common  sense,  of  tenderness,  of  self-sacri- 
fice. I  say  nothing  of  my  young  girls.  They  form  a 
collection  of  which  I  am  proud.  Aside  from  one  or 
two  Americans  and  the  Benoitons,  you  could  marry 
them  all ;  and  this  is  no  slight  praise." 

He  is  right  to  be  proud  of  them.  It  would  be  hard 
to  find  a  more  charming  scene  in  recent  comedy  than 
the  one  in  the  last  act  of  'Nos  Bons  Villageois,'  in 
which  Gene"vieve  (the  ingtnue)  with  girlish  frankness 
confesses  to  her  brother-in-law,  the  baron,  that  she  is 
in  love,  and  that  her  lover  is  coming  in  a  few  hours  to 
ask  for  her  hand  ;  this  same  lover  being  the  man  with 
whom  the  brother-in-law  is  about  to  fight  a  duel  because 
the  lover  has  been  apparently  intriguing  with  Gene"- 
vieve's  sister,  the  baron's  wife.  The  daughter  of 
Se"raphine  is  almost  equally  charming :  her  presence 
in  the  play  does  much  toward  atoning  for  the  odious- 
ness  of  her  mother,  —  that  despicable  creature,  a  female 
hypocrite,  a  Lady  Tartuffe,  but  not  as  delicately  drawn 
as  Mme.  de  Girardin's.  And  the  tender  and  clinging 
grace  of  the  fragile  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Alba  in 
'  Patrie  ! '  must  be  accepted  as  some  compensation  for 
the  wretchedly  vicious  heroine.  He  acknowledges  that 
these  two,  S6raphine  and  Dolores,  are  dark  spots  in  his 
white  list  of  women,  "and  especially  Dolores.  Im- 


M.  Victorien  Sardou.  193 

posed  on  me  by  the  action  of  the  play,  she  long  haunted 
my  sleep  to  reproach  me  for  having  made  her  so 
guilty." 

These  words  —  "  imposed  on  me  by  the  action  of  the 
play"  (impost  par  la  donnte  meme) — let  in  a  flood  of 
light  on  M.  Sardou's  methods  of  work.  His  characters 
are  the  creatures  of  his  situations.  He  contrives  his 
plot  first,  and  afterwards  looks  around  for  people  to 
carry  it  out.  Here,  again,  is  the  difference  between 
M.  Sardou  and  M.  Augier.  The  author  of  the  '  Fils  de 
Giboyer'  and  the  'Mariage  d'Olympe'  invents  and  con- 
trasts characters,  and  then  lets  them  work  out  a  play. 
The  author  of  '  Nos  Bon  Villageois '  happens  on  a 
striking  situation,  and  then  puts  together  characters 
to  set  it  off  to  best  advantage.  M.  Augier  is  interested 
in  human  nature,  and  trusts  for  success  on  man's  inter- 
est in  man :  M.  Sardou  relies,  for  the  most  part,  on  the 
mechanical  ingenuity  of  his  situations.  As  the  proper 
subject  of  comedy  is  to  be  found  in  the  ever  varying 
phases  of  human  nature,  rather  than  in  the  external 
and  temporary  accidents  of  life,  M.  Augier's  method  is 
truer  than  M.  Sardou's. 

In  the  preface  to  the  '  Haine,'  from  which  quotation 
has  already  been  made,  M.  Sardou  tells  us  how  the  first 
idea  of  a  play  is  revealed  to  his  mind.  "  The  process  is 
invariable.  It  never  appears  otherwise  than  as  a  sort 
of  philosophic  equation  from  which  the  unknown  quan- 
tity is  to  be  discovered.  As  soon  as  it  is  fairly  set 
before  me,  this  problem  possesses  me,  and  lets  me  have 
no  peace  till  I  have  found  the  formula.  In  '  Patrie  ! '  this 
was  the  problem,  What  is  the  greatest  sacrifice  a  man 
can  make  for  love  of  his  country  ?  And,  the  formula 
once  found,  the  piece  followed  of  its  own  accord.  In 


194  French  Dramatists. 

the  '  Haine '  the  problem  was,  In  what  circumstances 
will  the  inborn  charity  of  woman  show  itself  in  the 
most  striking  manner  ? " 

This  confession,  which  is  probably  as  exact  as  Poe's 
account  of  the  way  he  wrote  the  '  Raven,'  confirms  the 
assertion  that  he  always  starts  with  a  situation.  In 
'  Patrie ! '  he  sought  to  find  the  situation  which  would 
show  in  action  the  greatest  possible  sacrifice  a  man 
could  make  for  love  of  his  country.  In  the  '  Haine ' 
he  looked  for  the  situation  in  which  the  inborn  charity 
of  woman  would  be  most  strikingly  revealed.  In  neither 
case  did  he  set  out  with  a  strong  character,  and  ask 
what  that  man  or  that  woman  would  do  in  a  given  sit- 
uation. In  both  plays  he  started  with  a  situation, 
meaning  to  fashion  afterward  a  man  or  a  woman  to  fit 
it.  We  must  confess  that  the  reliance  M.  Sardou 
places  in  his  situations  is  not  misplaced.  In  general 
they  are  very  strong,  and  they  admit  of  effective  theat- 
rical handling.  Although  one  is  indisposed  to  admit 
that  in  '  Patrie ! '  we  have  the  greatest  sacrifice  a  man 
may  make  to  his  country,  still  the  situation  is  beyond 
doubt  powerful  and  pathetic.  The  patriot  leader  of  a 
revolt,  loving  his  wife  only  second  to  his  country,  dis- 
covers, on  the  eve  of  the  rising  against  the  oppressor, 
that  she  is  untrue  to  him,  and  that  her  lover  is  his  sec- 
ond in  command,  — a  man  whose  services  are  indispen- 
sable to  the  triumph  of  the  insurgents.  He  does  not 
hesitate,  but  sacrifices  at  once  his  private  vengeance  to 
his  patriotism,  and  fights  side  by  side  with  the  man 
who  has  wronged  him.  In  '  Nos  Bons  Villageois  '  a 
young  man  found  in  a  lady's  dressing-room  at  night, 
under  suspicious  circumstances,  seizes  her  jewels,  and 
allows  himself  to  be  denounced  as  a  thief,  sacrificing 


M.  Victorien  Sardou.  195 

himself  to  save  her  reputation.  In  'Dora'  a  young 
girl  on  her  wedding  morning  is  accused,  and  the  proof 
is  overwhelming,  of  having  stolen  an  important  official 
document  from  her  husband  to  send  it  to  an  emissary 
of  the  enemy.  In  the  '  Bourgeois  de  Pont  d'Arcy '  the 
situation  is  equally  dramatic  ;  but  it  is  fundamentally 
disgusting,  and  suggests  the  reflection  that  M.  Sardou 
has  morally  no  taste,  to  use  the  apt  phrase  of  Henry 
James,  Jr.,  about  George  Sand.  And  this  lack  of  moral 
taste  affects  us  unpleasantly  in  other  of  his  plays, — 
in  the  '  Haine '  for  instance,  in  the  '  Diables  Noirs,' 
and  in  '  Maison  Neuve  ! '  —  in  all  of  which  the  strength 
of  the  situations  is  beyond  dispute. 

Few  playwrights  have  ever  had  more  skill  in  handling 
a  situation  than  M.  Sardou.  He  has,  as  M.  Jules  Clare- 
tie  neatly  puts  it,  "  better  than  any  one  the  fingering 
of  the  playwright "  (la  doigte'  du  dramaturge}.  He 
prepares  his  situation  slowly,  and  presents  it  with  full 
effect ;  leaves  you  in  doubt  for  a  while,  and  then  cuts 
the  knot  with  a  single  unexpected  stroke.  After  he 
has  got  his  characters  into  a  terrible  tangle,  and  there 
is  seemingly  no  way  of  loosing  the  bands  which  bind 
them,  M.  Sardou  either  shows  us  that  the  tangle  was 
only  apparent,  and  the  slipping  of  a  single  loop  will  set 
everybody  free,  or  else  he  whips  out  his  penknife,  and, 
as  has  just  been  said,  slyly  cuts  the  cords,  getting  his 
knife  safely  back  into  his  pocket  while  we  are  all  aston- 
ished at  the  sudden  falling  of  the  ropes.  In  this  super- 
subtle  ingenuity  M.  Sardou  again  resembles  Scribe,  but 
the  disciple  has  improved  on  the  master.  Both  drama- 
tists take  delight  in  producing  great  effects  from  little 
causes,  but  the  methods  are  different.  Scribe  had  the 
ingenuity  of  the  travelling  conjurer  at  a  country  fair : 


196  French  Dramatists. 

he  showed  you  a  pellet  under  this  cup ;  in  a  second  it 
is  passed  under  that ;  and,  before  you  know  it,  he  raises 
the  third,  and  there  it  is  again.  The  trick  is  done,  and 
the  three  acts  are  over,  leaving  the  pellet-people  very 
nearly  where  they  were  when  he  began.  But  the  art 
of  magic  has  made  great  progress  of  late.  The  village 
conjurer  has  given  way  before  the  court  prestidigitator. 
M.  Sardou  disdains  a  simple  cup-and-ball  effect :  he  has 
at  his  command  an  electric  battery  and  a  pneumatic 
machine,  and  he  can  do  the  second-sight  mystery.  He 
is  a  wizard  of  the  North,  not  like  Scott,  but  like  Ander- 
son. He  handcuffs  his  hero,  seals  him  in  a  sack,  locks 
the  sack  in  a  box,  has  the  box  heavily  chained,  then 
lowers  the  lights,  and  fires  a  pistol — and  hi!  presto! 
the  prisoner  is  free,  and  ready  to  play  his  part  again. 

M.  Charles  Blanc,  in  his  witty  and  graceful  reply  to 
M.  Sardou's  reception  oration  at  the  Academy,  —  a 
reply  in  which,  as  is  often  the  case  in  the  academic 
ceremonies,  cutting  criticism  and  biting  rebuke  were 
courteously  sheathed  in  suavity,  politeness,  and  compli- 
ment, with  no  dulling  of  the  edge  of  their  keenness,  — 
M.  Charles  Blanc  satirically  praised  M.  Sardou's  skill 
in  "using  small  means  to  arrive  at  great  effects. 
Among  these  small  means  there  is  one,  the  letter,  that 
you  use  from  preference,  and  always  happily.  The  let- 
ter !  —  it  plays  a  part  in  most  of  your  plots  ;  and  all  of  it 
is  important,  the  wrapper  as  well  as  its  contents.  The 
envelope,  the  seal,  the  wax,  the  postage-stamp  and  the 
postmark,  and  the  tint  of  the  paper  and  the  perfume 
which  rises  from  it,  not  to  speak  of  the  handwriting, 
close  or  free,  large  or  small, — how  many  things  in  a 
letter,  as  handled  by  you,  may  be  irrefutable  evidence 
to  betray  the  lovers,  to  denounce  the  villains,  and  to 


M.  Victor ien  Sardou.  197 

warn  the  jealous!"  M.  Blanc  continues  by  pointing 
out,  that,  in  the  '  Pattes  de  Mouche,'  a  letter  is  the  basis 
of  the  plot :  it  is  a  long  time  hidden  under  a  porcelain 
bust ;  then,  turn  by  turn,  it  serves,  half-burnt,  to  light  a 
lamp,  then  to  prop  a  shaky  table,  then  as  a  wad  in  a  gun, 
then  as  a  box  for  a  rare  beetle,  and  then,  at  last,  for  a 
proposal,  which  settles  all  things  to  everybody's  satis- 
faction. In  '  Dora '  the  traitress  is  exposed  because  of 
a  peculiar  perfume  which  she  alone  uses,  and  which 
clings  to  the  letter  she  has  touched.  In  'Fernande,' 
in  which  M.  Sardou,  as  M.  Blanc  says,  "has  so  well 
depicted  the  exquisite  elevation  of  a  young  soul  which 
has  preserved  itself  pure  in  the  midst  of  all  the  im- 
purities of  a  wretched  gambling-hell,  the  heroine,  on 
the  eve  of  marrying  a  gentleman,  the  Marquis  des 
Arcis,  writes  him  a  letter  avowing  the  ignominies  she 
has  passed  through  without  moral  stain  ;  but  this  letter, 
intercepted  by  an  old  mistress  of  the  marquis,  does  not 
arrive  at  its  destination  in  time,  and  the  marquis  learns, 
when  it  is  too  late,  that  his  marriage  was  dishonoring. 
However,  as  Fernande  had  loyally  confessed  before 
what  he  had  only  learned  after,  he  consents  to  forgive 
all ;  he  wishes  to  forget  all ;  he  easily  persuades  him- 
self that  he  ought  to  love  her  whom  he  does  love ; 
and  thus  a  letter,  because  it  was  a  day  too  late,  makes 
happy  a  girl  whom  an  involuntary  stigma  does  not  pre- 
vent from  being  charming."  In  the  'Bourgeois  de 
Pont  d'Arcy '  it  is  a  letter  again  which  a  son  will  not 
allow  his  mother  to  see,  because  it  convicts  his  father 
of  sin  ;  and  this  refusal  forces  the  son  finally  to  avow 
himself  guilty  of  his  father's  fault.  In  the  'Famille 
Benoiton '  and  in  '  S^raphine '  letters  are  again  to  be 
found  in  the  very  centre  of  the  plot. 


198  French  Dramatists. 

In  spite  of  this  frequent  use  of  apparently  inadequate 
and  trifling  means  to  untie  the  knots  of  his  story,  no 
playwright  has  ever  shown  more  skill  in  getting  the 
utmost  possible  effect  out  of  a  situation  :  the  situation, 
however,  is  nearly  all  there  is.  The  characters  are 
made  to  fit  it,  and  the  dialogue  is  sufficient  to  display  it. 
The  skeleton  may  be  supple  and  well-jointed  :  it  is  not 
clothed  with  living  flesh  and  blood.  In  spite  of  all  the 
cleverness,  there  is  no  real  feeling.  There  are  few 
words  which  come  straight  from  the  heart,  such  as 
abound  in  M.  Augier's  work.  The  language  of  any  of 
the  characters  in  the  moments  of  intense  emotion  is 
always  to  the  point,  and  vigorous,  and  all  that  is  needed 
by  the  situation ;  but  it  is  the  clever  language  of  M. 
Sardou,  not  the  simple  words  of  a  heart  torn  by  anguish, 
or  racked  by  suspense.  The  characters  do  not  rule 
events :  they  are  ruled  by  them.  For  the  most  part, 
they  are  little  more  than  puppets,  to  be  moved  me- 
chanically so  as  to  bring  on  the  situation,  or  else  they 
are  vehicles  for  the  author's  wit  and  his  satire. 

For  M.  Sardou  is  really  a  journalist  playwright.  He 
tries  to  put  the  newspaper  on  the  stage.  He  is  rarely 
content  to  rely  on  his  dramatic  framework,  good  as  it 
may  be ;  but  he  seeks  to  set  it  off  by  an  appeal  to  the 
temper  of  the  time,  and  an  attempt  at  reflecting  it.  To 
enable  him  to  combine  this  dramatizing  of  editorial  arti- 
cles and  the  latest  news,  with  the  proper  presentation 
of  a  strong  situation,  M.  Sardou  has  devised  a  new  for- 
mula of  dramatic  construction.  What  this  formula  is 
can  be  seen  on  even  slight  consideration  of  almost  any 
two  or  three  of  his  five-act  comedies,  — '  Dora,'  or  '  Oncle 
Sam,'  or  '  Nos  Bons  Villageois.'  He  does  not  always 
employ  this  formula :  '  Patrie  ! '  is  an  exception,  and  so 


M.  Victorien  Sardou.  199 

in  a  measure,  is  '  Fernande.'  Indeed,  as  the  Paris  corre- 
spondent of  the  Nation  once  said,  "  Sardou  is  not  ob- 
stinate :  he  changes  his  manner,  not  in  the  course  of  a 
few  years,  like  the  great  painters ;  he  can  change  it  three 
times  a  year.  He  rather  likes  to  change  it,  to  jump 
from  one  thing  to  another,  to  alter  his  system :  he  is  a 
sort  of  dramatic  clown." 

In  spite  of  these  frequent  changes  of  system,  there 
are  nearly  a  dozen  of  M.  Sardou's  plays,  and  the  best 
known  of  them,  constructed  according  to  a  definite  for- 
mula. This  formula  is  evidently  the  result  of  a  sort  of 
compromise  arrived  at  between  the  two  different  men 
contained  in  M.  Sardou,  —  the  satirical  wit  and  the 
situation-loving  playwright,  Pasquin  and  Scribe.  The 
wit  writes  the  first  half  of  the  comedy,  and  it  rattles 
along  as  briskly  and  as  brightly  as  a  revolving  firework ; 
and  then  the  playwright  seizes  the  pen,  and  the  story 
suddenly  takes  a  serious  turn,  and  the  interest  grows 
intense.  It  is  characteristic  of  his  cleverness,  that  he 
is  able  to  join  two  acts  and  a  half  of  satirical  comedy 
to  two  acts  and  a  half  of  melodramatic  strength  so 
deftly  that  at  first  glance  the  joint  is  not  visible.  The 
first  act  of  any  one  of  his  plays  rarely  does  more  than 
introduce  the  characters,  and  develop  the  satirical  motive 
of  the  play.  Often  there  is  absolutely  no  action  what- 
ever. This  is  the  case  in  both  the  '  Famille  Benoiton  ' 
and  '  Oncle  Sam,'  the  first  acts  of  which,  as  has  been 
said,  are  almost  exactly  alike.  In  the  second  act,  the 
satire  and  the  wit  and  the  comedy  continue  to  be  de- 
veloped ;  and  possibly  there  is  an  indication  of  a  coming 
cloud,  but  it  is  not  larger  than  a  man's  hand.  In  neither 
'  Dora '  nor  '  Nos  Bons  Villageois '  do  we  get  much 
nearer  the  action  of  the  story  in  the  second  act  than 


2OO  French  Dramatists. 

we  were  in  the  first.  During  these  earlier  acts  M. 
Sardou  is  quietly  laying  his  wires  ;  and  in  the  third  act 
the  change  comes,  the  masked  batteries  are  revealed, 
and  strong  situation  and  sensation  follow  each  other  in 
rapid  succession.  Even  in  the  caustic  '  Rabagas,'  M. 
Sardou  seemingly  had  no  confidence  in  his  pure  comedy, 
and  so  lugs  in  by  the  ears  an  extraneous  intrigue  of  the 
prince's  daughter  with  a  captain  of  the  guards. 

For  this  inartistic  mingling  of  two  distinct  styles  of 
play,  M.  Sardou  has  good  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  it 
pays  better  to  write  five-act  plays  than  plays  of  any 
other  length.  A  dramatic  author  in  Paris  takes  fifteen 
per  cent  of  the  gross  receipts  every  night,  more  or  less. 
If  his  play  is  short,  he  only  gets  his  proportion  of  this, 
sharing  it  with  the  authors  of  the  other  pieces  acted 
the  same  evening  :  if  his  play  is  long,  and  important 
enough  to  constitute  the  sole  entertainment,  he  natu- 
rally takes  the  whole  fifteen  per  cent  himself.  Having 
thus  a  motive  for  writing  five-act  plays,  M.  Sardou  knows 
the  temper  of  Parisian  play-goers  too  well  to  believe  that 
either  five  acts  of  satirical  comedy  or  five  acts  of  pa- 
thetic interest  will  please  as  well  as  five  acts  in  which 
both  tears  and  smiles  are  blended.  Five  acts  of  humor 
would  probably  begin  to  pall  long  before  the  fifth  act 
was  reached,  and  five  acts  of  pathos  would  probably 
prove  too  lugubrious  :  so  he  combines  the  two.  Now, 
the  Parisian  play-goer  has  a  very  bad  habit :  he  dines 
late ;  and,  if  he  goes  to  the  theatre  after  a  dinner,  he 
arrives  certainly  after  the  first  act,  possibly  after  the 
second.  Therefore,  clever  in  this  as  in  all  things,  M. 
Sardou  delays  the  real  movement  of  his  play  until  the 
third  act,  when  he  is  certain  to  have  all  his  spectators 
assembled  ;  and  in  the  first  two  acts  he  gives  free  rein 
to  his  satirical  instincts. 


M.  Victor ien  Sardou.  201 

To  amuse  the  many  spectators  who  may  have  come 
in  time,  he  has  much  bustle,  much  coming  and  going, 
little  or  no  dramatic  progress,  but  much  effective  theat- 
rical movement,  all  accompanied  by  a  running  fire  of 
witticisms,  and  hits  at  the  times.  His  plays  are  written 
so  distinctly  to  suit  the  taste  of  the  moment,  that  when 
they  are  revived  in  after-years,  they  seem  faded,  and 
have  a  slightly  stale  odor,  as  of  second-hand  goods.  In- 
deed, it  would  not  be  difficult  for  any  one  familiar  with 
politics  and  society  in  France  for  the  last  score  of  years 
to  declare  the  date  of  almost  any  of  M.  Sardou's  five- 
act  comedies  from  a  cursory  inspection  of  its  allusions. 
'  Fernande,'  we  note  from  a  remark  in  the  first  act,  was 
written  about  the  time  a  bottle  of  ink  was  broken  against 
the  Terpsichorean  group  of  statuary  which  adorns  the 
new  opera-house ;  and  the  '  Famille  Benoiton  '  marks 
the  fashionable  corruption  of  the  lower  Empire  just 
before  the  Exhibition  of  1867.  As  M.  Jules  Claretie 
has  neatly  said,  "  Sardou  is  a  barometer  dramatist,  rising 
and  falling  with  the  weather,  as  it  changes  or  is  about 
to  change.  .  .  .  Turn  by  turn,  liberal  or  re-actionary, 
as  liberty  or  re-action  may  happen  to  be  at  a  premium, 
and  pay  a  profit  to  him  who  traffics  in  it,  he  will  praise, 
for  example,  the  reconstruction  of  Paris  in  the  'Ga- 
naches '  when  M.  Haussmann  is  up  at  the  top  of  the 
hill,  and  he  will  scourge  it  in  '  Maison  Neuve ! '  when  M. 
Haussmann  draws  near  his  fall."  The  criticism  is  not 
unjust.  The  incipient  re-action  against  the  republic 
found  its  reflection  in  1872  in  'Rabagas;'  the  uneasy 
restlessness  in  regard  to  foreign  spies  furnished  the 
groundwork  for  'Dora'  in  1877  5  tne  provincial  election- 
eering, log-rolling,  and  wire-pulling  of  the  MacMahonite 
struggles  were  used  in  1878  to  give  color  to  the  '  Bour 


2O2  French  Dramatists. 

geois  de  Pont  d'Arcy  ; '  and  advantage  is  taken  of  the 
agitation  in  favor  of  a  divorce-law  in  1881  to  give  point 
to  '  Divorgons.' 

In  spite,  therefore,  of  M.  Sardou's  extraordinary 
cleverness,  of  his  great  theatrical  skill,  of  his  undenia- 
ble wit,  in  spite  of  his  many  gifts  in  various  directions, 
he  is  not  a  dramatist  of  the  first  rank.  He  cannot 
safely  be  taken  as  a  model.  As  Joubert  points  out,  "  It 
suffices  not  for  an  author  to  catch  the  attention  and  to 
hold  it :  he  must  also  satisfy  it."  M.  Sardou  often 
catches  the  attention,  and  for  a  time  he  holds  it ;  but 
he  never  satisfies  it.  In  the  preceding  pages  he  has 
been  likened  to  a  conjurer,  a  clown,  and  a  barometer. 
If  these  comparisons  are  just,  they  suggest  that  there 
is  an  ever-present  taint  of  insincerity  in  his  work ;  that 
he  does  not  put  himself  into  it ;  and  that  we  shall  seldom 
find  in  it  that  "one  drop  of  ruddy  human  blood  "  which 
Lowell  tells  us  "  puts  more  life  into  the  veins  of  a  poem 
than  all  the  delusive  aurum  potabile  that  can  be  distilled 
out  of  the  choicest  library,"  or  compounded  by  the 
utmost  cleverness. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

M.    OCTAVE    FEUILLET. 

AMONG  the  foremost  of  the  French  dealers  in  for- 
oidden  fruit,  canned  for  export  and  domestic  use,  is 
M.  Octave  Feuillet,  whose  wares  are  well  known  to  the 
American  public.  His  novels  are  the  fine  flower  of 
the  Byzantine  literature  of  the  Second  Empire.  They 
have  been  freely  translated  and  widely  read  in  this 
country.  The  'Romance  of  a  Poor  Young  Man'  has 
the  choice  distinction  of  being  one  of  the  few  French 
novels  harmless  enough  for  perusal  in  young  ladies' 
boarding-schools.  The  drama  which  M.  Feuillet  made 
from  this  novel,  and  of  which  a  broadened  and  vulgar- 
ized version  has  been  acted  in  America  by  Mr.  Lester 
Wallack,  is  equally  famUiar.  Two  other  of  his  plays  — 
the  'Tentation'  (skilfully  transmuted  by  Mr.  Boucicault 
into  '  Led  Astray  ')  and  the  '  Sphinx '  —  have  been  fre- 
quently shown  to  American  play-goers.  But  the  novels 
which  have  been  translated  into  English,  and  the  plays 
which  have  been  acted  in  America,  are  only  a  part  of 
M.  Feuillet's  work ;  and  they  are  not  sufficient  to  give 
a  fair  idea  of  his  qualities  or  his  career. 

Born  in  1812,  M.  Octave  Feuillet  began  to  be  known 
toward  the  end  of  the  first  half  of  the  century  as  one 
of  the  assistants  and  imitators  of  Alexandre  Dumas  the 
elder,  then  in  the  splendor  of  his  most  prodigal  produc- 
tion. Just  what  share  M.  Feuillet  may  have  had  in  any 
of  the  countless  tales  of  his  master  it  is  impossible  to 

203 


204  French  Dramatists. 

say,  nor  how  many  bricks  he  may  have  made  for  the 
marvellous  palace  of  Monte  Cristo.  With  M.  Paul 
Bocage,  another  of  Dumas's  disciples,  M.  Feuillet  wrote 
a  novel  or  two  and  several  dramas.  Among  the  plays 
are  '  Echec  et  Mat '  (1846),  '  Palma,  ou  la  Nuit  du  Ven- 
dredi  Saint'  (1847),  and  the  'Vieillesse  de  Richelieu' 
(1848).  These  pieces  are  rather  ponderous  dramas  of 
the  Dumas  type,  made  on  the  model  of  '  Angele,'  '  The- 
rese,'  and  '  Richard  Darlington.'  Although  common- 
place and  conventional,  they  are  not  without  a  certain 
cleverness  ;  but  they  made  no  mark,  and  they  have  noth- 
ing salient  or  individual  about  them,  and  so  call  for  no 
comment  here. 

In  these  juvenile  writings  M.  Feuillet  was  merely 
feeling  his  way ;  and,  not  finding  success,  he  abruptly 
changed  front,  and,  ceasing  to  follow  Dumas,  began 
to  walk  in  the  footsteps  of  Alfred  de  Musset.  After 
the  failure  of  one  of  his  earliest  plays,  Musset  had 
given  up  writing  for  the  stage,  while  steadily  putting 
forth  pieces  in  dramatic  form  for  the  readers  of  the 
Revue  des  Deux  Mondes.  Without  his  knowledge, 
certain  of  these  plays  were  acted  at  the  French  theatre 
in  St.  Petersburg ;  and,  when  the  actress  who  had  caused 
their  performance  returned  from  Russia  to  the  Theatre 
Frangais  she  brought  Musset's  comedies  with  her. 
And  it  happened  that  just  about  the  time  when  M. 
Feuillet  left  off  collaborating  with  M.  Bocage,  and  began 
to  look  around  for  himself,  Musset  was  having  a  series 
of  unlooked-for  successes  on  the  stage.  M.  Feuillet 
came  forward  with  comedies  modelled  on  Musset's,  but 
different  from  these  in  one  important  particular.  Mus- 
set's heroes  and  heroines  were  a  law  unto  themselves, 
as  much  as  to  say  that  their  loves  not  seldom  were  law- 


M.  Octave  Feuillet.  205 

less :  now,  M.  Feuillet's  pair  of  lovers  had  been  duly 
married  by  the  mayor. 

Here  occasion  serves  to  remark  on  the  meagreness 
of  subject  to  be  found  in  nearly  all  French  fiction  now- 
adays,—  in  the  novel  as  well  as  in  the  drama.  The 
inexhaustible  fertility  and  ingenuity  of  the  French  lit- 
erary workmen  may  hide  for  a  while  the  thinness  of  the 
theme  which  they  have  wrought ;  but  sooner  or  later,  in 
spite  of  all  the  variety  of  enamel,  and  all  eccentricity 
of  form  by  which  the  cunning  artificers  seek  to  distract 
attention,  we  detect  the  poverty  and  scantiness  of  the 
material  which  they  are  working.  Just  as  most  con- 
temporary English  fiction  ends  with  the  wedding-bells, 
so  most  contemporary  French  fiction  rings  the  changes 
on  the  one  tune,  —  lawless  love.  "Business,"  said 
Robert  Macaire,  "is  other  people's  money."  "Mar- 
riage," says  most  modern  French  fiction,  "is  other 
people's  wives."  To  discuss  why  there  is  this  tacit  con- 
fession of  a  dearth  of  other  subjects  fit  for  fiction, 
would  take  me  too  long,  and  too  far  from  the  present 
text ;  but  that  the  scarcity  exists,  even  in  the  plays 
of  the  best  French  dramatists  of  our  time,  is  beyond 
doubt.  Of  the  dozen  dramas  of  M.  Alexandre  Dumas 
fits,  all  (with  perhaps  a  single  exception)  turn  on 
adultery  or  illegitimacy  ;  and  one  or  the  other  of  these 
subjects  furnish  forth  half  of  M.  Augier's  plays,  and 
perhaps  two-thirds  of  M.  Sardou's.  It  is  not  that  these 
plays  are  all  immoral :  on  the  contrary,  M.  Dumas 
nowadays  always  writes  with  a  conscious  moral  aim, 
though  his  morality  has  a  queer  twist  of  its  own ;  M. 
Augier's  manly  comedies  have  the  morality  inherent  in 
all  healthy  works  ;  and  even  M.  Sardou  affronts  the 
proprieties  far  less  than  one  might  suppose.  Still  the 


206  French  Dramatists. 

fact  remains,  that  the  majority  of  the  dramas  of  these, 
the  first  three  dramatists  of  our  day,  turn  on  the  illicit 
relation  of  the  sexes,  as  though  that  were  the  only 
theme  capable  of  effective  dramatic  treatment,  and 
worthy  of  it.  Of  course  there  are  other  themes.  Pure 
love  has  its  dramatic  possibilities,  as  well  as  impure 
love.  Love  is  only  one  of  the  passions  ;  and  although 
popular  will  demands  that  it  enter  into  every  play,  it 
may  be  made  subordinate  to  the  development  of  any 
one  of  the  other  passions.  How  few  of  Shakspere's 
plots  spring  from  illicit  love,  or  have  any  thing  to  do 
with  it !  In  the  best  English  novels  of  this  century 
we  find  absorbing  interest  and  ample  psychologic  reve- 
lation with  the  slightest  —  perhaps  even  a  too  slight  — 
attention  to  the  theme  which  is  the  staple  of  corre- 
sponding French  fiction.  Scott  and  Thackeray,  George 
Eliot  and  Hawthorne,  have  used  unlawful  passion,  but 
in  proportion  only,  and  not  to  the  neglect  of  the  other 
motives  which  move  mankind.  French  feeling  differs 
from  ours  ;  and  perhaps  the  playwrights  merely  dwell  to 
excess  on  a  topic  to  which  their  countrymen  in  general 
give  an  exaggerated  attention.  There  is  a  curious 
passage  in  one  of  the  later  writings  of  M.  Dumas,  in 
which  he  discusses  marital  misfortune,  and  tells  us  that 
every  man  thinks  of  it  constantly,  laughing  at  his 
neighbor,  and  fearing  for  himself.  The  American  hus- 
band does  not  devote  his  days  and  nights  to  specula- 
tions about  his  wife's  fidelity. 

To  the  French  public,  thus  familiar  with  the  most 
high-flown  and  the  least  lawful  passion,  M.  Feuillet 
gave  a  new  thing :  he  offered  it  the  old  and  ever 
welcome  exhibition  of  amorous  adventure,  dexterously 
veiled  by  a  pretence  of  morality.  French  morality  is 


M.  Octave  Feuillet.  207 

at  times  rather  humorsome ;  and  in  one  of  its  freaks 
it  chose  to  accept  M.  Feuillet's  pseudo-delicacy  and 
ultra-refinement,  and  to  close  its  eyes  to  the  falsity 
of  M.  Feuillet's  ethics.  The  public  was  tired  of  the 
stormy  souls  in  irregular  situations  seen  in  the  stories 
of  Hugo,  Dumas,  George  Sand,  Merimee,  and  Musset ; 
and  it  was  ready  for  a  novelty.  M.  Feuillet  took 
Musset  for  his  model,  turning  his  morality  inside  out. 
Musset's  morality  was  easy,  to  say  the  least :  and  M. 
Feuillet's  was  pretentiously  paraded ;  his  tender  and 
glowing  interiors  were  certified  to  contain  only  a  duly 
married  couple.  Instead  of  the  trio  —  husband,  wife 
and  lover  —  almost  universal  in  French  literature,  there 
was  only  a  duo,  in  which  the  husband  committed  adul- 
tery with  his  own  wife.  It  was  an  attempt  to  graft 
the  roses  and  raptures  of  vice  on  the  lilies  and  lan- 
guors of  virtue.  By  giving  conjugal  endearments  the 
externals  of  criminal  passion,  M.  Feuillet  managed  to 
lower  marriage  to  the  level  of  vulgar  gallantry,  and  to 
make  the  reconciliation  of  husband  and  wife  as  in- 
teresting as  the  chance  intrigues  of  a  courtesan.  In 
these  boudoir  dramas  he  outraged  the  sacred  secrecy 
of  wedded  life  ;  but  so  clever  was  his  affectation  of  pro- 
priety, that  many  respectable  people  did  not  look  be- 
neath the  surface,  and  took  him  at  his  own  word.  Then 
there  were  those,  who,  having  preached  against  the 
wickedness  of  the  world,  could  not  denounce  so  ingen- 
uous a  writer  when  he  declared  himself  their  ally. 
And  yet  another  class  was  pleased  by  these  new  plays 
—  the  pretentious  prudes  ;  for  there  are  pre'cieuses  ridi- 
cules now  as  well  as  two  hundred  years  ago,  though 
there  is  no  Moliere  to  put  them  in  the  pillory. 

Fairness  requires  us  to  admit  that  perhaps  the  author 


208  French  Dramatists. 

was  more  sincere  then  than  we  now  judge  from  a  study 
of  his  work ;  and,  if  he  believed  in  himself,  why  should 
not  others  believe  in  him  ?  Even  those  who  detested 
him  were  not  always  sharp  enough  to  see  the  underly- 
ing immodesty.  One  of  these  scoffingly  nicknamed  him 
the  family  Musset, — the  "Musset  des  families,"  a  slant- 
ing allusion  to  an  eminently  proper  periodical  publica- 
tion called  the  Musee  des  Families.  But  he  failed  to 
blind  so  keen  an  observer  as  Sainte-Beuve,  as  any  one 
may  see  who  reads  the  perfidious  compliments  scattered 
through  the  study  of  M.  Feuillet's  work  with  which  the 
great  critic  greeted  'Sibylle,'  —  a  Roman-Catholic  Ten- 
denz-Roman,  a  "novel  with  a  purpose,"  —  written  at  the 
request  of  the  devout  and  frivolous  empress,  and  pub- 
lished in  1863. 

M.  Feuillet  followed  in  Musset's  footsteps,  not  only 
in  the  form  of  his  new  ventures,  but  also  in  the  mode 
of  putting  them  before  the  public.  They  appeared  first 
in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  and  then  in  volumes 
called  '  Scenes  et  Comedies  '  and  '  Scenes  et  Proverbes.' 
In  Musset  fashion  again,  it  was  some  little  time  before 
the  plays  M.  Feuillet  had  thus  printed  and  published 
were  brought  out  at  a  regular  playhouse.  Although 
there  is  everywhere  in  his  work  an  odor  of  tuberoses, 
sweet  and  stifling,  a  few  of  these  earlier  little  comedies 
are  not  open  to  the  objection  I  have  just  urged;  and 
in  such  unpretentious  and  simple  plays,  as  pretty  as 
they  are  petty,  M.  Feuillet  shows  at  his  best.  The 
'Village'  is  a  touching  little  sketch  of  country  life. 
The  '  Fe"e '  is  an  amusing  attempt  to  import  some  of 
the  quaint  mystery  of  fairy-folk  lore  into  this  matter-of- 
fact  ninteenth  century.  The  '  Urne  '  is  a  lively  repro- 
duction or  imitation — pastiche  is  the  French  word  — 


M.  Octave  Feuillet.  209 

of  the  comedy  of  Marivaux  and  his  fellows.  M.  Feuil- 
let has  a  distinct  sense  of  the  comedy  of  situation,  and 
is  not  lacking  in  Gallic  lightness ;  although  his  humor 
has  no  depth,  and  his  wit  no  edge.  In  all  these  little 
plays  he  appears  to  advantage :  he  can  handle  two  or 
three  characters  in  the  compass  of  a  single  act  without 
overstraining  his  powers.  Even  the  '  Cheveu  blanc,'  a 
fine  specimen  of  his  new  style  of  tickling  the  jaded 
palate  of  Parisians  by  a  highly-spiced  dish  served  with 
an  insipid  and  enveloping  moral  sauce,  is  more  tolerable, 
because  shorter,  than  his  later  and  more  ambitious  at- 
tempts in  the  same  vein.  Elegant  trifling,  grace,  ease, 
and  emptiness,  and  fine,  unsubstantial  talk  about  ego- 
tism and  selfishness  and  honor, — these  are  the  charac- 
teristics of  the  '  Scenes  et  Comedies  ; '  and  it  is  in  these 
that  M.  Feuillet  excels. 

The  three  more  important  plays  of  this  period  of  M. 
Feuillet's  career  are  the  '  Crise,'  '  Dalila,'  and  '  Redemp- 
tion,' all  of  which  passed  through  the  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes  on  their  way  to  the  stage ;  the  '  Crise,'  for 
one,  waiting  from  1848,  when  it  appeared  in  the  maga- 
zine, until  1854,  before  it  got  itself  acted  in  the  theatre. 
Seriously  considered,  '  Redemption '  is  an  absurd  play  ; 
puerile,  or  at  least  boyish,  in  motive,  and  feeble  even 
in  construction ;  for  the  prologue  is  useless,  and  the 
scenes  are  disjointed.  'Dalila'  is  better  and  stronger 
in  itself ;  and,  besides,  it  is  free  from  the  childish  endeav- 
or to  grapple  with  tiny  hands  at  the  mighty  problems 
which  vex  men's  souls.  In  Carnioli,  too,  there  is  a 
character  of  force  and  freshness.  Of  these  three  plays, 
however,  the  '  Crise '  is  first  in  interest,  as  it  was  in 
point  of  time.  It  is  the  earliest  of  the  dramas  in  which 
M.  Feuillet  posed  as  the  analyst  of  the  feminine  char 


2  io  French  Dramatists. 

acter,  and  as  one  who  had  spied  out  all  its  secrets,  and 
had  a  balm  for  all  its  wounds.  The  crisis  from  which 
the  play  takes  its  title  is  that  eventful  moment  in  life, 
when,  according  to  our  author,  even  the  most  honest 
and  worthy  woman,  having  aforetime  led  a  reputable 
and  humdrum  life,  all  of  a  sudden  has  a  mad  desire  to 
go  to  the  devil  headlong  :  it  is  an  alleged  culminating 
point  of  the  feminine  curiosity  of  knowledge  of  good 
and  evil.  There  are  plays  which  criticise  themselves  ; 
when  the  story  is  once  told,  no  comment  is  called  for : 
the  '  Crise '  is  one  of  these. 

In  the  four  acts  there  are  but  three  characters  (save 
a  servant  or  two) ;  and  these  three  characters  are  the 
eternal  trio  of  French  fiction,  —  husband,  wife,  and 
lover.  For  ten  years  the  husband  and  the  wife  have 
lived  happily  together.  To  his  oldest  and  best  friend, 
who  is  also  the  family  physician,  the  husband  confides 
that  of  late  his  wife  has  changed  :  she  could  not  be 
in  better  health  physically ;  but  she  is  now,  against 
her  wont,  at  times  restless,  or  irritable,  or  sentimental, 
or  what-not,  as  the  whim  seizes  her.  The  doctor  ex- 
plains that  this  is  the  crisis  in  her  life,  the  epoch  of 
maturity  in  woman,  when  she  longs  for  a  bite  of  for- 
bidden fruit.  The  husband  asks  for  a  prescription. 
The  doctor  explains  that  the  only  cure  for  this  strange 
taste  is  for  the  husband  to  find  a  devoted  friend 
who  will  lead  the  wife  to  the  brink  of  the  abyss,  but 
only  to  the  brink ;  and  he  vouches,  that,  when  she 
shrinks  back  in  horror,  she  will  long  no  more  for  the 
apples  on  the  other  side  of  the  chasm  :  it  will  be  a  radi- 
cal cure.  The  husband  instantly  beseeches  the  doctor 
to  try  this  experiment  on  his  wife ;  and  the  friend  re- 
luctantly but  immediately  consents  to  pretend  to  be  the 


M.  Octave  Feuillet.  211 

lover.  Husband  and  lover  then  draw  up  a  code,  under 
which  the  lover  is,  if  possible,  to  seduce  the  wife, — 
pausing  before  any  damage  is  done,  —  so  that  the  wife 
may  be  cured  by  an  awful  warning  and  a  narrow  escape. 
Time  passes,  and  the  lover  makes  headway.  The  hus- 
band finds  his  wife's  private  journal,  and  brings  it  to  the 
lover ;  and  the  two  men  read  it  together  to  see  how  the 
wife  feels.  In  all  this  playing  with  fire,  the  lover  and 
the  wife  kindle  a  flame  in  their  own  hearts.  At  last  a 
guilty  appointment  is  made.  Morally,  at  least,  the  sin  is 
committed.  Just  in  time  the  husband  intervenes,  and, 
talking  in  parables,  threatens  to  deprive  the  wife  of  her 
children,  should  she  sin.  This  restless  and  sentimental 
woman,  be  it  known,  has  two  children.  So  effective  are 
these  parables  of  the  husband's,  that  the  new  love  fades 
out  of  the  wife's  heart,  and  she  falls  on  her  husband's 
neck ;  and  then  the  curtain  falls  also,  leaving  in  doubt 
the  fate  of  the  unfortunate  lover.  Is  not  comment 
needless  ? 

In  1858  M.  Feuillet  turned  his  novel,  the  'Romance 
of  a  Poor  Young  Man,'  into  a  play ;  and  for  sufficiently 
obvious  reasons  it  is  the  most  wholesome  of  his  later 
dramas.  The  scene  is  skilfully  chosen  ;  the  characters 
are  sharply  contrasted  ;  and  a  dexterous  use  is  made  of 
our  love  for  the  heroic  and  self-sacrificing  :  so  we  see 
the  play  with  pleasure  in  spite  of  its  quick-tempered 
and  disagreeable  young  woman,  its  high-toned  and  hot- 
headed young  man,  its  absurd  old  pirate,  and  its  atmos- 
phere of  effeminate  sentimentality.  Two  years  later 
it  was  followed  by  the  'Tentation,'  the  first  comedy 
which  M.  Feuillet  had  written  directly  for  acting,  and 
not  for  reading  ;  and  its  simpler  and  closer  structure 
shows  the  benefit  of  the  experience  gained  in  transfer 


212  French  Dramatists. 

ring  its  predecessors  from  the  pages  of  a  magazine  to 
the  boards  of  a  theatre.  There  is  no  need  to  dwell  on 
the  '  Tentation,'  as  it  is  as  familiar  to  American  audi- 
ences as  the  '  Romance  of  a  Poor  Young  Man,'  —  Mr. 
Dion  Boucicault  having  turned  it  into  '  Led  Astray.' 
Nothing  better  shows  Mr.  Boucicault's  skill,  and  knowl- 
edge of  the  temper  of  our  playgoing  public,  than  the 
tact  and  taste  with  which  he  changed  the  relationship 
of  the  objectionable  pair  of  foreign  adventurers.  Mr. 
Boucicault's  Irish  soldier  of  fortune  is  a  distinct  char- 
acter, with  truly  Irish  wit  and  readiness ;  whereas  M. 
Feuillet's  foreigners  were  Frenchmen  in  disguise. 
Oddly  enough,  M.  Feuillet  is  fond  of  using  foreigners 
to  give  color  and  comic  variety  to  his  groups  :  we  find 
them  not  only  in  this  play,  but  also  in  '  Redemption,' 
'Montjoye,'  and  the  'Sphinx.'  It  is  all  the  more  odd 
that  he  should  resort  to  this  expedient  for  forcing  a 
laugh,  when  he  has  a  flow  of  easy  comedy  all  his  own, 
and  nowhere  shown  to  better  advantage  than  in  this 
very  play.  There  is  brightsome  humor  and  charming 
comedy  in  the  courtship  of  the  two  young  people  ;  and, 
although  the  two  old  women  are  somewhat  farcical,  even 
they  do  their  share  in  amusing.  But  the  main  intrigue 
of  the  play  is  again  husband  and  wife  and  lover ;  and 
again  the  heroine  is  a  lady  of  passionate  aspirations 
and  valetudinarian  virtue ;  and  again,  when  every  thing 
tends  toward  irretrievable  mishap,  the  dramatist  inter- 
venes, and  gives  a  sharp  twist  to  plot  and  people ;  and 
after  such  a  wrench  the  play  cannot  but  end  happily. 

Any  one  of  M.  Feuillet's  plays  might  be  called  '  On 
the  Brink ; '  and  in  very  few  of  them  is  there  an  actual 
fall  over  the  precipice.  Here  the  author  is  lacking  in 
intellectual  seriousness  :  he  is  always  ready  to  drop  logic 


M.  Octave  Feuillet.  213 

through  a  trap  in  his  trick-table.  "  Consequences  are 
unpitying,"  said  George  Eliot ;  evidently  M.  Feuillet 
does  not  think  so  :  however  vicious  any  character  may 
seem,  we  may  be  sure  of  his  death-bed  repentance,  and 
that  he  will  die  in  a  state  of  grace  and  the  odor  of  sanc- 
tity. Next  to  the  uncleanness  beneath  the  surface, 
this  is  M.  Feuillet's  worse  defect ;  and  nowhere  has  it 
done  him  more  harm  than  in  '  Montjoye,'  a  comedy  in 
five  acts,  brought  out  in  1863,  three  years  after  the 
'  Tentation.'  Taken  altogether,  this  is  perhaps  M.  Feuil- 
let's best  play :  it  is  the  only  one  of  his  serious  pieces 
in  which  he  has  not  mistaken  violence  for  strength. 
Montjoye  himself  is  the  central  figure  of  the  picture, 
and  indeed  the  only  one ;  for  all  the  others  are  merely 
accessory,  and  devised  to  set  off  the  protagonist.  Mont- 
joye is  a  man  of  velvet  manner  and  iron  will,  —  a  man 
who  aims  at  success,  and  who  believes  that  the  end  jus- 
tifies the  means,  and  who  bends  or  breaks  every  thing 
to  attain  his  end.  He  is  a  character  boldly  projected, 
although  not  sufficiently  justified,  and  at  the  finish  not 
self-consistent.  He  softens  into  sentiment,  and  so  weak- 
ens the  effect  on  the  audience.  In  criticising  M.  Augier, 
M.  Zola  praises  the  final  impenitence  of  Maitre  Gudrin. 
This  final  impenitence  is  just  what  Montjoye  lacks  :  in 
real  life  such  a  man  would  die  game. 

The  fact  is,  M.  Feuillet  is  no  Frankenstein :  he  never 
creates  any  being  he  cannot  control ;  and  he  makes  all 
his  creatures  do  his  bidding  at  the  peril  of  their  lives. 
He  is  rather  a  magician,  who  raises  good  and  evil  spirits 
at  will.  Or,  to  be  more  exact,  he  is  a  writer  of  fairy- 
tales. The  stories  he  tells  are  not  true,  and  they  could 
not  happen  anywhere  out  of  fairyland.  In  one  of  his 
'  Scenes  et  Comedies,'  he  ventured  within  the  magic  cir- 


214  French  Dramatists. 

cle  in  that  most  mysterious  little  play  called  the  '  Fee,' 
in  which  a  benevolent  and  sprightly  little  fairy  plays 
most  charming  and  delightful  pranks,  —  all  of  them, 
alas  !  prosaically  explained  away  before  the  curtain  falls. 
Once  granting  that  M.  Feuillet  is  a  writer  of  fairy- 
tales, and  it  is  a  matter  of  course  to  find  the  '  Belle  au 
Bois  dormant '  in  the  list  of  his  plays  ;  and  it  is  per- 
haps characteristic  that  this  '  Sleeping  Beauty  in  the 
Wood '  should  be  a  drama  rather  than  a  comedy.  The 
Sleeping  Beauty  is  the  last  of  a  feudal  line,  declining 
into  poverty,  and  representing  the  past.  The  young 
Prince  is  the  head  of  a  factory,  rising  in  riches,  and 
thus  representing  the  future.  The  Beauty  has  an  im- 
practical and  re-actionary  brother ;  and  the  Prince  has 
a  practical  and  progressive  sister :  thus  is  the  play  pro- 
vided with  two  pair  of  lovers.  So  far  is  the  fairy-tale 
followed,  that  when  the  young  Prince  gets  into  the 
castle,  the  author  puts  the  Beauty  to  sleep  off-hand, 
that  the  Prince  may  see  her  so.  There  is  much  clever- 
erness  in  detail,  as  there  is  ingenuity  in  the  main  situa- 
tion. Here,  frankly  face  to  face,  is  the  conflict  of  old 
and  new,  past  and  future,  —  a  conflict  irrepressible  and 
irreconcilable ;  and  there  is  no  end  to  it. 

And  here,  again,  M.  Feuillet  shows  his  artistic  weak- 
ness. His  young  Prince  is  no  true  man  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  having  to  do  with  men  and  machinery, 
and  master  of  himself  at  all  events.  He  is  no  true 
man  at  all :  when  he  cannot  get  the  woman  he  loves, 
he  breaks  down,  and  moons  around,  and  weeps  saltless 
tears.  How  much  better  this  is  handled  in  one  of 
our  own  novels,  as  those  will  acknowledge  who  recall 
the  same  situation  in  the  '  American '  of  Mr.  Henry 
James,  Jr. !  When  Christopher  Newman  determines 


M.  Octave  Feuillet.  215 

to  marry  the  highborn  French  woman  who  has  charmed 
him  with  her  quiet  grace,  he  hesitates  at  no  obstacle, 
he  is  baffled  by  nothing,  he  works  out  his  own  work, 
he  fights  his  own  fight,  and  he  bears  every  thing  before 
him  by  sheer  force  of  Yankee  grit  and  Yankee  wit, 
until  at  last  the  doors  of  a  convent  clang  to,  and  the 
woman  he  seeks  is  shut  up  from  him  behind  the  walls 
of  the  church,  —  the  one  thing  against  which  all  Yan- 
kee energy,  ingenuity,  and  perseverance  are  vain. 

All  this  time  M.  Feuillet  was  slowly  outgrowing  the 
imitation  of  Musset.  In  the  'Romance  of  a  Poor 
Young  Man,'  in  the  'Tentation,'  in  'Montjoye,'  and 
especially  in  the  '  Sleeping  Beauty  in  the  Wood,'  it  is 
easy  to  see  traces  of  Musset's  manner :  taken  alto- 
gether, however,  these  plays  are  truly  M.  Feuillet's 
own,  and  not  fiefs  for  which  he  must  needs  do  homage. 
As  the  recollection  of  Alfred  de  Musset  was  getting 
fainter,  the  influence  of  M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fils  was 
growing.  Already  in  '  Dalila '  one  may  see  some  sign 
of  the  '  Dame  aux  Cam&ias '  and  of  '  Diane  de  Lys ; ' 
and  surely  the  'Tentation'  and  'Montjoye'  would  not 
have  been  what  they  are,  had  it  not  been  for  the  '  Demi- 
Monde'  and  the  'Fils  Nature!.'  The  influence  of  M. 
Dumas  upon  M.  Feuillet  is  the  influence  of  a  man  of 
marked  individuality  and  vigor  upon  a  man  of  feeble 
fibre ;  and,  as  time  passed,  this  influence  became  plainer 
and  more  emphatic.  The  author  of  the  '  Crise '  seemed 
to  tire  of  the  nickname  the  MM.  de  Goncourt  had 
tagged  to  him,  and  refused  any  longer  to  be  the  "  Mus- 
set des  families."  Not  content  with  charming,  and 
drawing  tears,  he  wished  to  thrill  and  to  shock  his 
audience  ;  and  M.  Dumas  seemed  to  him  the  best  model. 
But,  in  trying  to  vie  with  M.  Dumas,  M.  Feuillet  was 


216  French  Dramatists. 

going  against  his  natural  gifts.  As  M.  Charles  Bigot 
said  in  his  admirable  study  of  the  author  of  '  Dalila,' 
"In  reality,  what  the  graceful  talent  of  M.  Feuillet 
lacks  is  strength,  and,  with  strength,  all  the  qualities 
which  go  with  it,  — logic,  simplicity,  frankness."  Now, 
these  are  just  the  qualities  which  M.  Dumas  has  most 
abundantly.  So  when  M.  Feuillet  tries  to  be  strong, 
he  is  only  violent ;  and,  when  he  seeks  to  show  his 
muscles,  he  lets  us  see  that  he  has  only  nerves,  to 
use  the  neat  figure  of  M.  Claretie. 

'Julie,'  a  drama  in  three  acts,  which  M.  Feuillet 
brought  out  at  the  Theatre  Frangais  in  1869,  is  plain- 
ly enough  an  attempt  to  repeat  the  effects  of  the 
'Supplice  d'une  Femme,'  of  which  M.  Dumas  is  one 
of  the  authors,  and  the  one  to  whom  its  success  is  due. 
But  '  Julie '  has  none  of  the  concentrated  passion  and 
remorseless  logic  which  make  the  '  Supplice  d'une 
Femme '  so  startling  and  successful ;  and  whereas  the 
'  Supplice  d'une  Femme  '  seems  dominated  by  a  fate  as 
inexorable  as  that  which  determined  the  destiny  of  the 
heroes  of  Greek  drama,  '  Julie '  has  all  the  weakness 
of  any  copy,  in  which  reliance  is  placed  on  carefully- 
planned  claptraps,  rather  than  on  the  natural  rush  and 
expression  of  emotion.  The  '  Supplice  d'une  Femme,' 
although  it  is  a  high-strung  play,  easy  to  turn  into 
ridicule,  has  the  accent  of  sincerity.  'Julie'  rings 
false.  It  was  a  play  of  a  kind  radically  opposite  to 
that  which  the  author  had  hitherto  produced  ;  and  even 
so  ingenious  a  writer  as  M.  Feuillet  cannot  change  his 
skin  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye.  In  his  treatment  of 
woman  M.  Dumas  is  severe,  and  logical  to  the  point  of 
brutality :  hitherto  M.  Feuillet  had  been  petting,  and 
illogical  to  the  verge  of  mushiness ;  and  it  was  no 


M.  Octave  Feuillet.  217 

wonder  that  the  author  of  '  Julie '  was  greeted  as  a 
literary  dandy  who  was  affecting  the  intense.  Of  a 
truth,  morality  is  not  a  garment  which  an  author  may 
don  and  doff  at  will :  if  it  be  good  for  any  thing,  his 
morality  is  in  him,  deep  down  in  him,  and  cannot  be 
torn  thence. 

Still  more  violent  and  feeble-forcible  than  '  Julie '  is 
M.  Feuillet's  latest  play,  the  'Sphinx,'  acted  in  1874. 
It  is  hard  to  see  in  this  ill-made  and  monstrous  impos- 
sibility any  trace  of  the  neat  workmanship  and  charming 
style  of  the  family  Musset.  A  vulgar  and  undigested 
drama  like  the  '  Sphinx '  forces  us  to  remember  that 
the  author  of  the  '  Romance  of  a  Poor  Young  Man '  and 
of  the  '  Sleeping  Beauty  in  the  Wood '  was  first  of  all 
the  author  of  melodramatic  crudities  like  '  Palma,  ou  la 
Nuit  du  Vendredi  Saint.'  Just  how  absurd  the  play  is 
can  best  be  seen  by  a  rapid  summary  of  the  plot. 

Blanche  de  Chelles  is  the  wife  of  a  naval  officer  absent 
on  a  cruise.  She  lives  with  her  father-in-law,  and  near 
her  friend  Berthe  de  Savigny,  whose  husband,  however, 
dislikes  the  intimacy,  and  seeks  to  break  it  off.  It  sud- 
denly transpires  that  the  cause  of  Blanche's  wanton  bra- 
vado of  manner  is  her  hitherto  unsuspected  love  for  M. 
de  Savigny.  As  soon  as  M.  de  Savigny  suspects  this, 
he  half  responds,  although  he  has  hitherto  disliked  her. 
Then,  with  a  revulsion  of  feeling,  he  pours  forth  his 
devotion  to  his  wife.  Blanche  overhears  this  conjugal 
scene,  and  instantly  accepts  the  proposal  of  an  impos- 
sible Scotch  nobleman,  Lord  Astley,  who  has  asked  her 
to  elope  with  him  to  Scotland.  M.  de  Savigny  forbids 
her  running  away,  and  she  takes  this  as  a  confession  of 
his  affection  for  her.  Now,  Madame  de  Savigny  has 
overheard  M.  de  Savigny's  avowals  to  Blanche,  just  as 


218  French  Dramatists. 

Blanche  had  previously  overheard  his  avowals  to  Berthe. 
(It  is  astonishing  how  everybody  overhears  every  thing 
all  through  the  play  ;  and  listeners,  we  know,  never  hear 
any  good  of  themselves,  and  rarely  of  any  one  else.) 
Having  discovered  the  guilty  love  of  her  husband  and 
Blanche,  Madame  de  Savigny  says  nothing,  but  suffers 
in  silence,  until  the  fourth  act.  Then  she  breaks  out, 
and  threatens  Blanche  with  certain  compromising  letters 
she  has  found.  (After  putting  people  behind  doors  to 
listen,  M.  Feuillet  makes  use  of  compromising  letters : 
surely  these  are  children's  toys,  unworthy  of  a  serious 
dramatist.)  Blanche  wears  a  mysterious  ring  with  a 
hollow  sphinx's  head  on  it,  containing  a  deadly  poison. 
She  opens  the  ring,  and  pours  the  poison  into  a  glass 
of  water,  just  as  Berthe  feels  faint,  and  asks  to  drink. 
Here  is  the  one  dramatic  scene  of  the  piece,  and  one 
moment  of  suspense  and  uncertainty.  Instead  of  giving 
the  fatal  draught  to  Berthe,  Blanche  drinks  it  off  her- 
self, and  dies  in  horrible  agony  and  with  convulsive 
contortions. 

Such  success  as  the  '  Sphinx  '  had  was  due  to  exter- 
nal accident.  With  M.  Feuillet's  usual  ingenuity  he  had 
laid  his  weakest  scene  in  one  of  the  picturesque  sites 
of  which  he  is  fond ;  and  the  moonlit  marsh  of  the  third 
act  did  nearly  as  much  for  the  '  Sphinx '  as  the  ruined 
tower,  with  its  lissome  coat  of  ivy,  did  for  the  '  Romance 
of  a  Poor  Young  Man.'  And  the  author  was  fortunate 
in  having  Mile.  Croizette  and  Mile.  Sarah  Bernhardt  for 
his  heroines.  It  was  not  the  first  time  that  the  talent 
and  authority  of  the  actress  had  done  much  for  the 
author,  as  those  willingly  bore  witness  who  saw  Mme. 
Favart  in  'Julie,'  and  Mme.  Fargueil  in  'Dalila.'  It 
was  rumored  at  the  time  that  M.  Feuillet  had  not  in- 


M.  Octave  Feuillet.  219 

tended  any  such  naturalistic  display  of  toxicological 
phenomena  as  Mile.  Croizette  exhibited,  and  that  the 
author  objected  to  the  "sensational"  devices  of  the 
actress.  If  so,  he  was  ungenerous ;  for  it  was  her  last 
dying  speech  and  confession  which  gave  the  play  all  the 
originality  it  could  boast.  As  to  the  taste  of  such  an 
exhibition,  opinion  may  differ :  in  this  case,  certainly,  it 
was  quite  in  keeping  with  the  tone  of  the  play.  "  It  is 
always  difficult,"  wrote  Lamb  to  Godwin,  "to  get  rid 
of  a  woman  at  the  end  of  a  tragedy.  Men  may  fight 
and  die.  A  woman  must  either  take  poison,  which  is  a 
nasty  trick ;  or  go  mad,  which  is  not  fit  to  be  shown ; 
or  retire,  which  is  poor ;  only  retiring  is  the  most  repu- 
table." 

'Julie '  and  the  '  Sphinx,'  however,  are  not  really  rep- 
resentative of  M.  Feuillet,  save  in  minor  detail ;  and  they 
are  artistically  so  inferior  to  his  earlier  plays,  that  they 
seem  the  result  of  some  strange  freak.  The  best  group 
of  his  dramatic  works  is  that  which  includes  the  pieces 
produced  between  1858  and  1865,  —  the  'Romance 
of  a  Poor  Young  Man,'  the  'Tentation,  'Montjoye,' 
and  the  '  Sleeping  Beauty.'  Although  one  can  scarcely 
call  these  comedies  strong  plays,  they  are  M.  Feuillet's 
strongest,  as  they  are  his  least  offensive.  They  reveal 
his  amiable  talent  in  the  most  favorable  light.  Yet  I 
am  not  sure  whether  some  of  his  smaller  plays,  and  in 
a  painter's  sense  less  "important,"  are  not  really  bet- 
ter bits  of  work  and  of  better  workmanship.  He  lacks 
logic  to  construct  your  carefully-considered  edifice  in 
five  acts  ;  and  he  has  no  breadth  of  style.  In  the  space 
of  one  act  he  does  not  exhaust  himself  or  his  spectator ; 
and  he  has  ample  marge  and  room  enough  to  show  off 
his  grace,  his  ease,  his  ingenuity,  his  charm  of  style, 


220  French  Dramatists. 

and  his  caressing  and  effeminate  touch.  There  is  some 
thing  feminine  in  the  author  of  the  '  Sleeping  Beauty.' 
Sainte-Beuve  remarked  that  M.  Feuillet  excelled  in  the 
women's  diaries,  of  which  he  is  fond :  as  who  should  say 
he  had  been  a  woman  himself.  Sustained  effort  is  not 
to  be  expected  from  a  writer  of  feminine  qualities  ;  and 
this  is,  perhaps,  why  certain  of  his  little  comedies  are 
of  greater  worth  than  their  bigger  brothers.  A  humor- 
ous fantasy  like  the  'Fruit  Defendu,'  in  which,  too, 
the  humor,  though  not  robust,  is  not  at  all  what  a  wo- 
man could  have  written ;  or  a  clear-cut  intaglio  from 
life,  like  the  'Village,'  a  little  masterpiece,  —  these  are 
worth,  not  only  all  the  'Julies'  and  'Sphinxes,'  but  all 
the  '  Romances  of  Poor  Young  Men '  and  '  Sleeping 
Beauties.'  On  the  other  hand,  also  in  one  act,  are  both 
the  '  Cheveu  Blanc '  and  '  Le  Pour  et  le  Centre,'  the 
most  disgusting  of  all  his  plays,  in  spite  of  their  high 
polish  and  superficial  decorum.  To  come  across  the 
'  Village '  in  the  series  of  M.  Feuillet's  plays  is  like  a 
vision  of  the  country  rising  before  you  as  you  stand  in 
the  overladen  air  of  a  stifling  ball-room.  The  'Village' 
is  one  of  the  author's  few  incursions  into  real  life. 
The  most  of  his  plays  have  their  scenes  laid  in  a  world 
of  his  own,  much  pleasanter  than  this  work-a-day  world 
of  ours.  It  is  a  world  where  youth  and  beauty,  and  wit 
and  riches,  and  titles  and  idleness  abound,  and  where 
there  is  nothing  poor,  or  mean,  or  painful.  Especially 
is  there  nothing  like  self-sacrifice.  Every  thing  has  a 
smooth  surface  and  a  fine  finish.  Everybody  is  happy, 
or  will  be  before  the  curtain  fall.  What  though  the 
fair  heroine  suffer  for  a  while  for  her  fault  ?  —  in  the 
end  all  will  come  right,  as  it  always  does  in  other 
fairy-tales. 


M.  Octave  Feuillet.  221 

The  want  of  variety  in  the  scene  is  to  be  detected 
also  in  the  actions  and  characters  of  M.  Feuillet's  come- 
dies, long  and  short.  He  has  his  favorite  type  of  man 
and  woman,  and  they  re-appear  again  and  again.  His 
men  all  wear  dress-coats  of  correct  cut,  and  white  ties 
beyond  reproach  :  by  preference  they  are  men  of  the 
world,  somewhat  cynical,  girding  at  society,  but  incapa- 
ble of  living  out  of  the  whirl  and  rush  of  passion  :  they 
are  men 

"Who  tread  with  jaded  step  the  weary  mill, 
Grind  at  the  wheel,  and  call  it '  Pleasure '  still ; 
Gay  without  mirth,  fatigued  without  employ, 
Slaves  to  the  joyless  phantom  of  a  joy." 

This  is  his  favorite  hero ;  and  his  favorite  heroine  is 
like  unto  him,  save  that  he  has  greater  skill  in  draw- 
ing women.  His  heroine  is  listless,  excited,  nay,  fever- 
ish at  times,  sickly  in  body  and  soul,  moved  by  a  secret 
and  nameless  unrest  born  of  idle  luxury.  She  fancies 
herself  abandoned  and  lonely.  "  Solitude,"  says  Balzac, 
"  is  a  vacuum  ;  and  nature  abhors  a  vacuum  in  morals 
as  in  physics."  The  wife  in  the  '  Crise '  is  hysteria 
personified ;  the  heroine  of  the  '  Tentation  '  is  no  bet- 
ter :  and  there  are  a  dozen  like  them.  One  feels  like 
prescribing  cold  bafchs  and  out-door  exercise  for  all  of 
them.  "Virtue,  however  solid  you  may  think  it,  has 
need  of  some  encouragement,  and  of  some  little  sup- 
port," says  the  heroine  of  'Le  Pour  et  le  Contre.' 
Poor  thing !  and  if  her  virtue  is  not  propped  and  stayed, 
if  there  come  a  thunder-storm,  or  if  any  other  of  a 
hundred  and  one  accidents  happen,  the  fragile  virtue 
gets  a  fall,  and  there  is  nobody  to  blame. 

In  discussing  M.  Victorien  Sardou,  the  final  word  is 
that  his  work  is  clever ;  and,  in  considering  M.  Octave 


222  French  Dramatists. 

Feuillet,  the  final  word  is  that  his  works  are  unhealthy. 
To  my  mind,  the  author  of  the  'Crise,'  and  of  the 
'Cheveu  Blanc,'  and  of  the  'Cle  d'Or,'  and  of  'Le  Pour 
et  le  Centre,'  is  one  of  the  most  dangerous  of  modern 
French  writers  of  fiction.  His  is  an  insidious  immo- 
rality, parading  itself  in  the  livery  of  a  militant  virtue. 
His  is  a  false  art,  and  false  art  is  pretty  surely  immoral. 
Summed  up,  his  teaching  is  that  you  can  touch  pitch, 
and  not  be  defiled,  so  long  as  you  wear  ten-button  kid 
gloves  ;  that  you  can  play  with  fire,  and  drop  the  torch 
so  soon  as  the  flame  begins  to  scorch  your  hands ;  that 
that  you  may  handle  edged  tools,  and  get  off  scart-free ; 
and  that  you  can  rush  headlong  at  the  precipice,  and 
pull  up  somehow  and  safely  right  on  the  brink.  It 
would  be  a  wholesome  pleasure  to  know  how  sturdy 
and  truly  British  Samuel  Johnson,  with  his  stalwart 
morality,  would  have  voiced  his  opinion  of  M.  Feuillet's 
ethics.  It  happens  that  there  is  extant  an  American 
equivalent  for  this  British  judgment.  I  was  re-reading 
M.  Feuillet's  productions  to  write  these  pages,  when 
Mr.  Stedman  published  his  fine  criticism  of  Walt  Whit- 
man ;  and  the  tricksy  humor,  which  is  said  to  be  an 
American  characteristic,  made  me  ask  myself  if  a 
greater  curiosity  of  literature  could  well  be  imagined 
than  a  criticism  of  M.  Octave  Feuillet  of  the  French 
Academy,  novelist  and  dramatist,  by  Walt  Whitman, 
American  poet  and  essayist.  But  a  poet  has  the  gift 
of  foreseeing  our  wants  and  of  satisfying  them  before 
we  ask ;  and  so,  when  I  took  up  '  Leaves  of  Grass '  to 
read  it  again  through  Mr.  Stedman's  spectacles,  I  found 
that  Whitman  had  expressed  his  opinion  of  Feuillet,  or 
what  we  may  be  sure  would  be  his  opinion,  did  he  care 
to  consider  the  Frenchman.  It  is  in  'Chants  D6mo- 
cratiques '  (284),  and  it  is  as  follows : — 


M.  Octave  Feuillet.  223 

"  They  who  piddle  and  patter  here  in  collars  and 
tailed  coats  —  I  am  aware  who  they  are  — 
they  are  not  worms  or  fleas." 

If  this  seem  a  harsh  judgment,  remember  that  the 
Frenchman  has  in  excess  the  very  qualities  the  Ameri- 
can most  detests  in  literature,  —  sweetness,  feudalism, 
the  aristocratic  atmosphere,  a  lady-like  touch.  If  this 
seem  a  harsh  judgment,  let  us  turn  to  Mr.  Stedman,  and 
try  M.  Feuillet  by  the  test  and  standard  Mr.  Stedman 
sets  up  to  gauge  Whitman ;  and,  though  more  cour- 
teously phrased,  I  doubt  if  the  verdict  will  differ 
greatly  from  the  suppositions  we  quoted  above  from 
'  Leaves  of  Grass.'  Here  is  what  Mr.  Stedman  asks : 
"  How  far  does  the  effort  of  a  workman  relate  to  what 
is  fine  and  enduring  ?  and  how  far  does  he  succeed  in 
his  effort?" 


CHAPTER   IX. 

EUGENE    LABICHE. 

ONE  of  the  most  curious  changes  of  opinion  that  is 
recorded  anywhere  in  the  history  of  literature  took  place 
in  France  during  1878  and  1879.  For  more  than  two- 
score  years  M.  Eugene  Labiche  had  been  putting  forth 
comic  plays  with  unhesitating  liberality.  His  humorous 
inventions  had  delighted  two  generations,  and  he  was 
set  down  in  the  biographical  dictionaries  as  one  of  the 
most  amusing  of  French  farce-writers.  Attempting  in 
rapid  succession,  and  with  almost  unbroken  success, 
every  kind  of  comic  play,  from  the  keen  and  quick  com- 
edy of  the  Gymnase  theatre  to  the  broad  buffoonery 
of  the  Palais  Royal,  for  nearly  forty  years  M.  Labiche 
had  been  one  of  the  most  prolific  and  most  popular  of 
French  playwrights.  His  work  was  seemingly  unpre- 
tentious, and  the  author  modestly  made  no  higher  claim 
than  to  be  the  exciting  cause  of  laughter  and  gayety. 
Having  made  a  fine  fortune,  he  had  watched  for  the  first 
symptom  of  failing  luck  ;  and,  as  soon  as  two  or  three 
plays  were  plainly  not  successes,  he  announced  that  he 
should  write  no  more,  and  withdrew  quietly  to  his  large 
farm  in  Normandy. 

The  retiring  of  a  mere  comic  writer  was  of  no  great 
moment,  and  few  paid  any  attention  to  it.  But  it  hap- 
pened that  M.  fimile  Augier  was  a  friend  of  M.  Labiche, 
and  that  one  day  he  came  to  visit  M.  Labiche  in  his 
country  retirement,  and  fell  to  reading  the  odd  plays  of 
2*4 


Eugene  Labiche.  225 

his  host  as  he  found  them  in  his  library.  He  was  so 
struck  and  so  surprised  with  what  he  discovered,  that 
he  prevailed  on  the  author  to  gather  together  the  best 
of  them  into  a  series  of  volumes,  promising  to  write  an 
introduction.  In  the  spring  of  1878  appeared  the  first 
volume  of  the  'Theatre  Complet'  of  M.  Eugene  Labiche, 
with  a  preface  by  M.  fimile  Augier,  in  which  he  pointed 
out  that  the  author  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  comic  plays 
was  not  a  mere  farce-writer,  but  a  master  of  humor,  for 
whom  he  had  the  highest  admiration.  "  Seek  among 
the  highest  works  of  our  generation  a  comedy  of  more 
profound  observation  than  the  'Voyage  de  M.  Perrichon,' 
or  of  more  philosophy  than  the  '  Misanthrope  et  1'Au- 
vergnat.'  Well,  Labiche  has  ten  plays  of  this  strength 
in  his  repertory."  The  leading  dramatic  critics  of  Paris 
—  and  in  France  dramatic  criticism  is  still  one  of  the 
fine  arts  —  fell  into  line,  M.  Francisque  Sarcey  first  of 
all.  They  read  the  volumes  of  M.  Labiche's  '  Theatre 
Complet '  as  they  followed  one  another  from  the  press  ; 
and  with  one  accord  almost  all  confessed  their  surprise 
at  the  richness  and  fecundity  of  M.  Labiche's  humor. 
Indeed,  it  seemed  as  though  the  critics  had  taken  to 
heart  the  repairing  of  their  previous  unwitting  indiffer- 
ence, and  were  unduly  lavish  of  admiration.  So  it  came 
to  pass  in  the  fall  of  1879,  when  the  tenth,  and  proba- 
bly the  final  volume  of  the  'Theatre  Complet '  appeared, 
that,  urged  to  overcome  his  modesty  by  his  cordial 
friends,  M.  Labiche  became  a  candidate  for  a  vacant 
chair  in  the  French  Academy,  seeking  admittance  among 
the  forty  immortals  chosen  from  the  chiefs  of  literature, 
science,  and  politics.  Three  years  before,  such  a  step 
would  have  seemed  a  good  joke ;  but  now  no  one  laughed. 
Certainly  those  did  not  laugh  who  opposed  his  election  ; 


226  French  Dramatists. 

and  the  staid  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes, — in  an  elaborate 
article  written  rather  in  the  slashing  style  of  the  earlier 
Edinburgh  Review  than  with  the  suave  and  academic 
urbanity  we  have  been  taught  to  expect  in  the  pages  of 
the  French  fortnightly,  —  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes 
argued  seriously  and  severely  against  his  election.  But 
the  tide  had  turned  in  his  favor.  He  was  elected ;  and 
November,  1880,  M.  Eugene  Labiche  took  his  place  in 
the  Academy  by  the  side  of  his  fellow-dramatists,  M. 
Victor  Hugo,  M.  fimile  Augier,  M.  Jules  Sandeau, 
M.  Octave  Feuillet,  M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fits,  and  M. 
Victorien  Sardou.  A  seat  in  the  Academy,  it  may  be 
remembered,  was  an  honor  refused  to  Jean  Baptiste 
Poquelin  de  Moliere,  to  Caron  de  Beaumarchais,  to 
Alexandre  Dumas,  and  to  Honore  de  Balzac. 

It  is  said,  but  with  how  much  truth  I  do  not  know, 
that  what  determined  M.  Labiche  to  stop  writing  for 
the  stage  was  the  recalling  of  an  incident  of  Scribe's 
later  years.  One  day,  about  1860,  M.  Labiche  had 
called  on  Jacques  Offenbach,  at  his  request,  to  see 
about  the  setting  to  music  of  a  little  play  which  had 
already  been  successful  without  it.  While  they  were 
talking,  a  card  was  brought  to  Offenbach,  who  impa- 
tiently tore  it  up,  and  told  the  servant  to  say  he  was 
not  at  home.  Then,  turning  to  M.  Labiche,  the  com- 
poser said  that  the  visitor  was  Scribe,  who  had  been 
bothering  him  to  set  one  of  his  plays  :  "  but  I  will  not 
do  it,"  added  Offenbach  roughly ;  "  for  old  Scribe  is 
played  out."  M.  Labiche  at  once  resolved,  that  when 
he  was  old  and  rich,  like  Scribe,  he  would  not  lag  super- 
fluous on  the  stage.  With  the  first  intimations  of  fail- 
ing power  to  please  the  fickle  play-goers  of  Paris,  he 
withdrew.  For  now  nearly  five  years  no  new  play  from 


Eugene  Labiche.  227 

his  pen  has  been  brought  out  in  Paris.  He  has  written 
a  trifle  or  two  for  the  'Theatre  de  Campagne,'  and  for 
'Saynetes  et  Monologues,' — two  little  collections  of 
comedies  for  amateur  acting ;  but  for  the  paying  public 
he  has  done  nothing.  It  is  to  M.  fimile  Augier  that 
the  credit  is  due  of  bringing  M.  Labiche  out  of  his 
retirement.  The  preface  which  M.  Augier  had  been 
too  lazy  too  write  for  his  own  collected  plays  he  wrote 
for  M.  Labiche's  ;  and  it  was  this  preface  which  first 
opened  the  eyes  of  the  press  and  the  public,  and  led  to 
the  frank  acknowledgment  of  M.  Labiche's  very  unusual 
merit.  The  theatrical  managers  are  now  only  too  eager 
for  new  pieces  from  him  ;  and,  in  default  of  these,  they 
have  revived  right  and  left  some  of  the  most  mirthful 
of  his  plays.  The  '  Grammaire '  at  the  Palais  Royal, 
the  '  Trente  Millions  de  Gladiateur '  at  the  Nouveaute"s, 
and,  above  all,  the  '  Voyage  de  M.  Perrichon '  at  the 
Ode'on,  were  received  with  great  cordiality  and  appre- 
ciation. 

To  most  Americans,  I  fancy,  the  name  of  M.  Labiche 
is  utterly  unknown  ;  and  one  may  well  ask,  What  man- 
ner of  plays  are  these,  that  they  could  remain  so  long 
misunderstood  ?  The  question  is  easier  to  ask  than  to 
answer.  The  most  of  them  are  apparently  farces,  in 
one,  two,  three,  four,  or  even  five  acts, — farces  some- 
what of  the  Madison  Morton  type.  Mr.  Morton  bor- 
rowed his  '  Box  and  Cox '  from  one  of  them  ;  the  late 
Charles  Mathews  took  his  '  Little  Toddlekins '  from 
another ;  from  a  third  came  the  equally  well-known 
'Phenomenon  in  a  Smock-frock.'  These  are  all  one- 
act  plays.  Of  his  larger  work,  a  version  of  the  '  Voyage 
de  M.  Perrichon '  has  been  done  at  the  Boston  Museum 
as  '  Papa  Perrichon ; '  and  Mr.  W.  S.  Gilbert  has  used 


228  French  Dramatists. 

the  plot,  and  tried  to  catch  something  of  the  spirit,  of 
the  'Chapeau  de  paille  d'ltalie'  in  his  'Wedding 
March.'  In  many  of  M.  Labiche's  plays,  perhaps  in  all 
but  the  best  of  them,  the  first  impression  one  gets  is 
that  of  extravagant  buffoonery :  the  phrase  is  scarcely 
too  strong.  But  soon  one  sees  that  this  is  no  grinning 
through  a  horse-collar ;  that  it  has  its  roots  in  truth ; 
and  that,  although  unduly  exuberant,  it  is  in  essence 
truly  humorous.  To  the  very  best  of  M.  Labiche's 
plays,  the  half-dozen  or  so  comedies  which  entitle  their 
author  to  take  rank  as  a  master,  reference  will  be  made 
later.  In  all  his  work,  in  the  weakest  as  well  as  in  the 
best,  the  dominant  note  is  gayety  :  they  are  filled  full 
of  frank,  hearty,  joyous  laughter.  In  reading  his  plays, 
as  in  seeing  them  on  the  stage,  you  have  rarely  that 
quiet  smile  of  intellectual  appreciation  which  is  called 
forth  by  Sheridan  in  English,  and  by  Beaumarchais, 
and  M.  Augier,  and  M.  Dumas,  in  French.  The  wit  is 
not  subtle  and  quiet,  excepting  now  and  again  in  the 
half-dozen  chosen  comedies.  There  is  rather  the  rush 
of  broad  and  tumultuous  humor  than  the  thrust  of  wit, 
and  the  clash  of  repartee.  It  is  not  that  the  dialogue 
has  not  its  felicities,  and  its  not  always  felicitous  quib- 
blings  and  quips  :  it  is  because  the  laughter  is  evoked 
by  a  humorous  situation,  from  which,  with  great  knowl- 
edge of  comic  effect,  and  with  unfailing  ingenuity,  the 
author  extracts  all  the  fun  possible.  A  comedy  ought 
to  stand  the  test  of  the  library,  —  how  few  modern 
comedies  there  are  in  English  which  will  stand  it!  — 
but  a  farce,  making  no  pretensions  to  be  literature,  may 
well  be  excused  if  it  does  not  read  as  well  as  it  acts. 
Yet  M.  Labiche's  plays,  frankly  farces  as  the  most  of 
them  are,  and  devised  to  lend  themselves  to  the  whim 


Eugene  Labiche.  229 

and  exaggeration  of  comic  actors,  will  still  repay 
perusal.  I  have  just  finished  the  reading  of  the  ten 
volumes  of  his  'Theatre  Complet;'  and  I  confess  to  real 
enjoyment  in  the  course  of  it.  The  fundamental  idea 
of  each  piece  is  in  general  so  humorous,  and  the  indi- 
vidual scenes  are  so  comic,  that  I  paid  my  tribute  of 
laughter  in  my  chair  by  myself  almost  as  freely  as  I 
should  have  done  in  my  seat  at  the  theatre.  Even  in 
the  plays  where  the  fun  seems  forced,  as  though  the 
author  were  out  of  spirits  when  he  wrote,  at  worst 
there  is  nearly  always  one  scene  as  mirthful  as  any  one 
could  wish.  This  quality  of  humor,  which  does  not 
rely  upon  any  merely  verbal  cleverness,  is  difficult  to 
set  before  a  reader.  An  epigram  of  Sheridan's,  or  of 
the  younger  Dumas's,  can  be  selected  for  quotation, 
which  shall  be  typical  of  the  writer's  whole  work.  It 
would  be  only  by  long  paraphrases  of  entire  plays,  or 
at  least  of  the  main  plots,  that  any  fair  idea  could  be 
given  of  M.  Labiche's  merits,  so  closely,  as  a  rule,  is 
his  humor  the  result  of  his  comic  situation.  But  the 
attempt  must  be  made,  however  inadequately.  In  the 
'  Trente  Millions  de  Gladiateur,'  one  of  the  poorest  of 
M.  Labiche's  plays,  is  a  scene  which  M.  Francisque 
Sarcey  thus  spoke  of  when  the  piece  was  last  given  in 
Paris  :  — 

"  The  scene  of  the  slaps  is  now  legendary.  I  do  not 
know  any  thing  more  unexpected,  or  more  laughable. 
A  druggist,  very  much  in  love  with  a  young  lady,  has 
by  accident,  one  night,  thinking  to  strike  another,  given 
his  future  father-in-law  a  resounding  slap.  The  father 
of  the  lady  declares  that  he  will  never  consent  to  the 
marriage  until  he  has  returned  the  blow.  But  the 
druggist  is  a  man  of  dignity,  and  he  has  been  a  com- 


230  French  Dramatists. 

mander  in  the  national  guard :  still,  after  many  a  hesi- 
tation he  submits.  He  presents  himself  to  be  slapped, 
and  holds  forth  his  cheek.  But  he  has  no  sooner 
received  the  blow,  than,  carried  away  by  an  irresistible 
impulse,  he  returns  it,  crying  with  disgust,  '  That  does 
not  count.  We  must  begin  again.'  Finally,  at  the 
very  end  of  the  piece,  when  she  whom  he  loves  is,  un- 
known to  him,  promised  to  another,  love  brings  him 
again  to  the  father,  and  again  he  holds  out  his  cheek 
for  the  blow.  The  father  rolls  up  his  sleeve,  gives  him 
the  slap,  and  then  at  once  points  to  the  other  suitor, 
and  says,  'Allow  me  to  present  my  future  son-in-law.' ' 

Another  scene  as  characteristic  is  to  be  found  in  the 
'Vivacite's  du  Capitaine  Tic.'  The  captain  is  a  very 
quick-tempered  man.  His  cousin  Lucile,  whom  he 
loves,  says  she  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  him  if  he 
forgets  himself  in  future  as  he  has  done  in  the  past. 
An  irritating  old  man,  who  wishes  to  marry  Lucile  to 
his  nephew,  determines  to  provoke  the  captain  into  an 
outbreak.  Lucile  promises  to  warn  her  cousin,  when 
he  begins  to  get  heated,  by  tapping  a  hand-bell.  The 
old  man  is  intentionally  irritating  ;  and  the  young  officer 
warms  up  at  once,  to  be  checked  by  a  tap  of  the  bell. 
As  Lucile  puts  the  bell  down,  the  old  man  uncon- 
sciously takes  it  up,  and  goes  on  with  his  insulting 
remarks.  Again  the  captain  boils  over,  and  is  about  to 
throw  the  insulter  out  of  the  window,  when  Lucile 
shakes  the  old  man's  arm,  and  so  rings  the  bell.  The 
officer  laughs  ;  and  after  that  he  has  no  difficulty  in 
keeping  his  temper,  in  spite  of  the  strength  of  the  old 
man's  provocation,  which  indeed  goes  so  far  as  to  call 
Lucile  to  her  feet  to  defend  her  cousin  with  warmth, 
not  to  say  heat.  Then  the  captain,  leaning  coolly 


Eugene  Labiche.  231 

against  the  fireplace,  taps  a  bell  there,  and  calls  his 
cousin  to  order.  Both  of  the  young  people  break  into 
a  hearty  laugh,  and  ring  their  bells  once  again  under 
the  nose  of  the  disappointed  old  man,  who  goes  out 
saying  that  the  captain  "has  no  blood  in  his  veins." 

All  this  may  sound  simple  enough,  and  perhaps  dull 
enough,  in  a  bald  paraphrase ;  but  no  one  would  call  the 
scene  dull  when  it  is  read  in  full  as  M.  Labiche  has 
written  it,  with  manifold  clever  little  turns  in  the  action, 
and  neat  little  touches  in  the  dialogue.  Both  of  the 
plays  from  which  these  scenes  are  taken  have  stood  the 
severest  of  tests,  —  the  ordeal  by  fire  :  they  have  been 
tried  in  the  glare  of  the  foot-lights.  It  is  no  easy  task 
to  bring  a  smile  on  the  faces  of  a  thousand  people 
assembled  together  ;  it  is  no  light  endeavor  to  force 
the  smile  into  a  hearty  laugh  ;  and  nowhere  is  a  public 
more  experienced  and  more  exacting  than  in  Paris. 
But  most  of  M.  Labiche's  plays  have  received  due  meed 
of  merriment.  The  laughter  is  not  always  evoked,  it 
must  be  confessed,  by  devices  as  simple  as  those  just 
set  forth.  There  is  sometimes  a  descent  into  the 
broadly  fantastic,  both  of  situation  and  of  dialogue. 
The  effort  to  be  funny  is  at  times  apparent,  and  the 
means  adopted  are  now  and  then  far-fetched. 

M.  Labiche's  plays  divide  themselves  readily  into 
three  classes :  first,  the  farcical  comedies  of  broad  and 
generous  fun ;  second,  the  plays  in  which  the  fun  has 
run  away  with  itself,  and  become  extravagance,  —  still 
founded  on  a  humorous  idea,  it  is  true,  but  none  the 
less  extravagant ;  and,  third,  the  plays  in  which  the 
humor  has  crystallized  around  a  thread  of  philosophy,  — 
the  plays  in  which  the  fun  rises  from  the  region  of  farce 
into  the  domain  of  true  comedy  of  a  high  quality.  Most 


232  French  Dramatists. 

of  the  fifty-seven  plays  in  the  ten  volumes  of  the  'Thea 
tre  Complet '  take  their  places  at  once  in  the  first  division. 
They  are  comic  dramas,  neither  falling  into  wild  farce, 
nor  rising  into  real  comedy.  They  are  comedies  of  large 
and  hearty  laughter,  with  no  Rabelaisian  breadth  of 
beam,  but  with  not  a  little  of  Molierian  swiftness.  The 
linking  thus  of  M.  Labiche's  name  with  that  of  the 
great  humorist  who  wrote  the  'Misanthrope,'  is  not 
as  incongruous  as  it  might  seem.  Along  with  other 
and  nobler  qualities  for  which  we  revere  him,  Moliere 
had  comic  force,  the  vis  comica,  in  its  highest  expres- 
sion, to  a  degree,  indeed,  equalled  only  by  Shakspere 
and  Aristophanes.  And  this  is  a  quality  which  M.  La- 
biche  has,  as  we  have  seen,  in  a  very  full  measure.  In 
a  few  other  particulars  it  might  be  possible  to  trace 
something  of  a  likeness.  M.  Labiche,  in  his  most  fan- 
ciful inventions,  could  scarcely  surpass  the  exuberant 
fancies  of  Moliere :  the  author  of  the  '  Bourgeois  Gen- 
tilhomme '  and  the  '  Malade  Imaginaire '  does  not  hesi- 
tate to  be  exuberant,  and  extravagant  also,  when  he  needs 
must  make  the  pit  laugh.  And  now  and  again,  in  M. 
Labiche's  very  best  work,  there  are  strokes  which  the 
author  of  the  '  School  for  Wives  '  would  not  despise. 

If  M.  Labiche  were  always  as  strong  as  his  strongest 
work,  just  as  a  bridge  is  as  weak  as  its  weakest  point, 
he  would  hold  high  rank  among  the  heirs  of  Moliere. 
His  'Theatre  Complet'  is  not  really  complete;  indeed, 
it  contains  barely  a  third  of  his  dramatic  writing :  but 
it  would  give  the  reader  a  higher  opinion  of  his  powers, 
if  it  were  but  a  third  of  what  it  is ;  if  instead  of  ten 
volumes,  we  had  only  three  or  four  ;  and  of  these,  one, 
or  at  most  two,  would  suffice  to  hold  the  few  plays  which 
raise  the  author  above  most,  if  not  all,  of  the  other 
French  stage-humorists  of  our  time. 


Eugene  Labiche.  233 

This  best  work  of  M.  Labiche's,  this  third  division 
of  his  plays,  includes  a  half-dozen  comedies,  each  of 
which  is  devoted  to  illustrating  a  philosophic  truth. 
They  may  be  called  dramatizations  of  La  Rochefoucauld- 
like  maxims.  In  '  Celimare  le  Bien-Aime '  the  truth 
illustrated  is  seemingly  the  homely  one,  that  our  pleasant 
vices  are  chickens,  which  will  surely  come  home  to  roost. 
In  the  '  Voyage  de  M.  Perrichon '  it  is  the  more  ducal 
axiom,  that  we  like  better  those  whom  we  have  bene- 
fited than  those  who  have  benefited  us.  The  history 
of  this  last  play,  if  current  report  may  be  credited, 
affords  an  instance  of  the  rather  roundabout,  not  to  say 
half-accidental,  way  in  which  M.  Labiche  has  made  his 
masterpieces.  He  started  out  with  the  well-worn  plan 
of  getting  fun  out  of  the  misadventures  of  a  Parisian 
shopkeeper  in  Switzerland ;  but  just  as  Dickens  soon 
abandoned  the  sporting  exploits  of  Mr.  Winkle,  which 
were  at  first  intended  to  form  the  staple  of  the  'Pickwick 
Papers,'  so  M.  Labiche,  when  the  play  was  half  written, 
coming  to  a  scene  in  which  Perrichon  was  rescued  from 
mortal  peril  by  the  suitor  for  his  daughter's  hand,  saw 
at  once  that  this  scene  ought  to  have  its  counterpart, 
in  which  Perrichon  should  pose  as  the  relieving  hero. 
This  suggested  the  axiom,  that  we  like  better  those 
whom  we  have  benefited  than  those  who  have  bene- 
fited us ;  and  the  author  thereupon  rewrote  the  play, 
taking  this  maxim  as  the  Q.  E.  D.  Perrichon's  daughter 
now  has  two  suitors,  one  of  whom,  acting  up  to  the 
axiom,  coolly  calculates  that  to  have  been  foolish 
enough  to  get  into  danger  will  not  be  a  pleasant  recol- 
lection, while  to  have  saved  another's  life  will  be  most 
gratifying  to  recall.  So  he  pretends  to  be  in  danger, 
and  lets  Perrichon  get  him  out  of  it,  and  calls  him  a 


234  French  Dramatists. 

preserver,  and  has  the  rescue  elaborately  noticed  in 
the  newspaper.  The  simple  and  conceited  shopkeeper 
avoids  the  man  who  saved  him,  and  seeks  the  man  he 
saved ;  and  so  the  play  goes  on.  Whenever  one  suitor 
really  serves  Perrichon,  the  other  devises  a  fresh  occa- 
sion for  Perrichon  apparently  to  benefit  him.  In  the 
end,  of  course,  all  is  exposed  and  explained,  — in  a  less 
skilful  manner  than  is  usual  with  M.  Labiche, — and 
the  really  brave  and  deserving  young  man  gets  the  fair 
daughter.  Here,  again,  all  paraphrase  is  bald  and  bleak 
when  contrasted  with  the  fertile  luxuriance  of  the 
humorous  original ;  but  I  trust  the  subject  has  been 
shown  plainly  enough  for  the  reader  to  see  that  it  lends 
itself  readily  to  comic  treatment.  I  trust,  too,  that  the 
reader  may  be  induced  to  examine  for  himself  (and  also 
for  herself)  the  play  as  it  is  in  the  second  volume  of 
M.  Labiche's  '  Theatre  Complet,'  where  it  is  accompanied 
by  the  '  Grammaire,'  a  bright  and  lively  little  play  in 
one  act ;  by  the  '  Petits  Oiseaux ; '  by  the  '  Vivacite's  du 
Capitaine  Tic,'  already  referred  to ;  and  by  the  '  Poudre 
aux  Yeux,'  an  almost  equally  amusing  though  short 
comedy  in  two  acts,  perhaps  better  known  in  America 
than  any  other  of  its  author's  work,  as  it  forms  part  of 
the  excellent  college  series  of  French  plays  edited  by 
Professor  Bdcher  of  Harvard.  These  five  plays  are  all 
entertaining,  characteristic  of  the  author,  and  free  from 
all  taint  of  impropriety. 

A  certificate  of  good  moral  character  cannot  be  given 
to  all  of  M.  Labiche's  plays.  The  '  Plus  Heureux  des 
Trois'  and  'Celimare  le  Bien-Aim6,'  two  of  his  best 
works,  had  better  be  avoided  by  those  who  have  not 
been  broken  in  to  French  ways  of  looking  at  life.  But 
two  other  plays  very  nearly  as  good,  the  '  Cagnotte ' 


Eugene  Labiche.  235 

and  '  Moi/  are  without  any  Frenchiness  or  Parisianism. 
These  four  plays,  with  the  '  Voyage  de  M.  Perrichon,' 
represent  M.  Labiche  at  his  best.  The  first  query 
which  the  reader  of  the  rest  of  his  works  puts  to  him- 
self is,  Why  does  not  M.  Labiche  write  always  at  this 
level  ?  Why  does  he  let  wit  so  lively,  and  humor  so 
true,  waste  themselves  on  the  wildness  of  farce  ?  The 
answer  is  not  far  to  seek.  It  is  to  be  found  in  the 
insultingly  modest  way  he  spoke  to  M.  Augier  about  his 
own  writings.  It  is  because  he  really  did  not  know 
how  good  his  best  work  was.  He  apparently  ranked 
all  his  plays  together :  he  had  aimed  only  at  fun,  at 
amusement  in  making  them ;  and,  although  some  had 
paid  better  and  been  more  praised  than  others,  he  did 
not  see  that  now  and  again  one  of  them  rose  right  up 
from  the  low  level  of  farce  to  the  broad  table-land  of 
true  comedy.  This,  of  course,  suggests  the  further 
question,  Why  did  he  not  see  his  own  merits  ?  And 
that  is  not  so  easy  to  answer.  Perhaps  it  is  owing  to 
his  writing  generally  for  farce  theatres,  where  the  comic 
company  so  overlaid  his  work  with  the  freaks  of  indi- 
vidual fantasy  that  he  could  not  see  the  higher  qualities 
of  what  was  best,  any  more  than  did  the  professional 
critics,  whose  duty  it  surely  was  to  sound  a  note  of 
warning,  and  prevent  such  pure  comic  force  from  wast- 
ing itself.  Perhaps  it  is  due  to  some  want  of  self- 
reliance,  —  of  which  one  may  possibly  see  proof  in  the 
fact  that  there  are  fifty-seven  plays  in  the  ten  volumes 
of  'Theatre  Complet,'  containing  in  all  one  hundred 
and  twelve  acts,  and  that  four  acts  only  are  the  work 
of  M.  Labiche  alone,  and  unaided  by  a  collaborator. 

Literary  partnerships  are  the  fashion  in  France  nowa- 
days, —  a  fashion  which  tends  to  the  general  improve- 


236  French  Dramatists. 

ment  of  play-making,  but  which  has  hampered  M. 
Labiche,  and  kept  him  from  doing  his  best.  In  one 
way  his  reluctance  to  rely  on  himself  is  freely  shown 
when  we  come  to  examine  the  result  of  his  collabo- 
rating. First  of  all,  we  see,  that  although  at  least  a 
dozen  different  writers  at  different  times,  some  of  them 
again  and  again,  worked  in  partnership  with  him,  yet 
the  fifty-seven  plays  are  all  alike  stamped  with  his 
trade-mark.  M.  Augier  and  M.  Legouv6  and  M.  Gon- 
dinet  are  authors  of  positive  force  and  distinct  charac- 
teristics ;  yet  the  plays  they  have  written  with  M. 
Labiche  are  like  his  other  plays,  and  unlike  their  other 
plays.  In  the  development  of  the  comic  theme,  in 
expressing  all  possible  fun  from  the  situation,  in  giving 
the  action  unexpected  turns  to  bring  it  back  again  for 
a  fresh  squeeze,  —  in  all  this  M.  Labiche  is  unexcelled, 
in  all  this  the  plays  are  beyond  peradventure  his  doing. 
But  in  the  technical  construction,  in  the  sequence  of 
scenes,  in  the  mere  stage-craft,  which  differs  in  different 
pieces,  and  is  indifferent  in  many  of  them,  there  is  noth- 
ing of  M.  Labiche's  own  :  in  all  probability,  intent  upon 
his  higher  task,  he  slighted  this,  and  left  it  in  great 
measure  to  his  coadjutors.  M.  Augier  points  out  the 
generic  likeness  of  all  the  plays  which  M.  Labiche  has 
signed,  and  suggests  that  it  is  because  he  writes  all 
these  plays  alone.  In  M.  Augier's  case,  repeated  con- 
versations between  him  and  M.  Labiche  enabled  them 
to  make  out  a  very  elaborate  scenario :  this  was  their 
joint  work;  and,  this  done,  M.  Labiche  requested  permis- 
sion to  write  the  piece  himself,  which  M.  Augier  gen- 
erously granted,  revising  the  completed  play  in  a  few 
minor  points  only.  It  may  be  remarked  parenthetically 
that  this  piece,  the  '  Prix  Martin,'  is  not  a  good  speci- 
men of  the  handiwork  of  either  author. 


Eugene  Labiche.  237 

Although  in  general  the  technical  construction  of 
the  play  seems  to  be  the  work  of  his  collaborator  of  the 
moment,  yet  even  in  the  construction  we  can  now  and 
again  detect  traces  of  M.  Labiche's  individual  clever- 
ness. No  one  of  the  contemporary  comic  dramatists 
of  France  can  so  neatly  and  so  simply  get  out  of  a 
seemingly  inextricable  entanglement.  A  single  sen- 
tence, a  solitary  word  sometimes,  a  slight  turn  given  to 
the  dialogue,  and  the  knot  is  cut,  and  nothing  remains 
but  "  Bless  you,  my  children,"  and  the  fall  of  the  cur- 
tain. An  instance  of  this  dramaturgical  cleverness  can 
be  seen  in  the  '  Deux  Timides,'  one  of  the  most  amus- 
ing of  his  one-act  plays.1 

The  critic  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  pleading 
specially  against  M.  Labiche's  candidature  for  a  seat 
among  the  forty,  pointed  out  that  he  has  not  hesitated 
to  use  the  same  idea  twice  ;  that,  for  instance,  the 
'  Vivacites  du  Capitaine  Tic '  is  erected  on  the  same 
foundation  as  the  shorter  and  slighter  '  Un  Monsieur 
qui  prend  la  Mouche,'  both  being  based  on  the  iden- 
tical hot-headedness  of  the  hero.  He  might  have  in- 
stanced also,  that,  instead  of  repeating  the  situation,  M. 
Labiche  sometimes  reverses  it ;  that  the  '  Plus  Heureux 
des  Trois  '  is,  in  part,  the  turning  inside  out  of  the  idea 
of  '  Celimare  le  Bien-AimeV  In  spite  of  discoveries 
like  these,  one  of  the  first  things  which  strikes  the 
reader  of  M.  Labiche's  plays  is  his  almost  inexhausti- 
ble variety  of  comic  incident.  Any  one  of  his  plays  is 
a  series  of  freshly  humorous  situations.  What  little 
old  material  may  here  and  there  be  detected  is  wholly 

1  An  admirable  adaptation  of  this  amusing  little  piece,  by  Mr.  Julian  Magnus, 
has  been  printed  in  '  Comedies  for  Amateur  Acting.'  (New  York :  D.  Appleton 
&  Co.,  1879.) 


238  French  Dramatists. 

cast  in  tne  shadow  by  the  brilliant  fun  of  the  original 
incidents.  But,  strange  to  say,  the  sterility  of  charac- 
ter is  almost  as  quickly  remarked  as  the  fertility  of 
situation  ;  and  this  shows  at  once  that  he  cannot,  no 
matter  at  what  interval,  be  put  even  in  the  same  class 
with  Moliere,  who  sought  for  humor  in  the  human  heart, 
and  not  in  the  external  circumstances  of  life. 

This  repetition  of  characters  is  but  added  evidence 
in  proof  of  M.  Labiche's  lack  of  ambition,  and  want  of 
belief  in  his  best  powers  ;  for  in  '  Moi,'  written  for 
the  Comedie-Franc_aise,  he  has  shown  a  capacity  for  the 
searching  investigation  of  characters  invented  with 
almost  as  much  freshness  as  he  had  in  other  plays  con- 
trived comic  incidents.  There  are  lines  in  '  Moi '  wor- 
thy of  the  highest  comedy.  And  in  more  than  one 
other  play  his  characters  deserve,  indeed  demand,  study. 
But  in  general  they  are  merely  the  Punch-and-Judy 
puppets  required  by  the  plot.  There  is  scarcely  a  fe- 
male figure  in  all  his  plays  which  the  memory  can 
grasp  :  all  are  slight,  intangible,  shadowy,  merely  the 
projections  needed  by  the  story.  M.  Sarcey  tells  us 
that  M.  Labiche  does  not  pretend  to  "do"  girls  or  wo- 
men :  he  says  that  they  are  not  funny. 

None  of  his  men  are  as  weak  as  his  women.  Some 
of  his  peasants  are  drawn  with  great  and  amusing  ac- 
curacy. Most  of  his  minor  characters  are  vigorously 
outlined,  and  well  contrasted  one  with  another ;  and 
one  character,  repeated  with  but  little  alteration  as  the 
central  figure  in  perhaps  two  dozen  plays,  is  drawn  with 
a  marvellous  insight  into  the  inner  nature  of  the  bour- 
geois of  Paris.  Although  grotesque  almost  in  its  humor, 
the  caricature  is  vital ;  for  it  is  a  personification  of  the 
exact  facts  of  bourgeois  life.  M.  Perrichon  and  Ccli- 


Eugene  Labiche.  239 

mare  and  Champbourcy  (in  the  '  Cagnotte '),  and  their 
fellows  in  many  another  play,  are  not  unlike  Mr.  Mat- 
thew Arnold's  homme  sensuel  moyen ;  and  with  a  mas- 
ter hand  M.  Labiche  lays  bare  the  selfish  foibles  and 
petty  vanity  of  the  average  sensual  man. 

One  cannot  help  wondering  what  Mr.  Matthew  Ar- 
nold's opinion  of  M.  Labiche's  '  Theatre  Complet '  would 
be,  if  it  were  of  high  or  of  equal  enough  merit  to  deserve 
his  study.  Mr.  Arnold  would  surely  be  confirmed  in  his 
belief  that  it  is  for  the  average  sensual  man  that  the 
French  dramatist  of  our  day  writes.  Not  that  there  is 
any  pandering  to  sensuality  in  M.  Labiche's  plays  :  on 
the  contrary,  the  ultimate  moral  of  his  work  is  always 
wholesome.  As  the  sharp  critic  of  the  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes  confessed,  his  pleasantry  is  not  either  heavy 
and  gross  as  in  the  old  vaudeville,  or  licentious  as  in 
the  new  opera-bouffe.  "  Generally  it  is  gay,  witty,  and, 
what  is  not  without  value,  at  bottom  always  honest." 
And  as  M.  John  Lemoinne  told  M.  Labiche  in  his  an- 
swer to  his  reception-speech  at  the  French  Academy, 
"  Your  comedy  is  perhaps  light,  nay,  even  risky :  but 
there  is  always  something  which  keeps  it  from  being 
immoral ;  it  is  never  sentimental." 

This  is  no  more  than  the  exact  truth.  Perilously 
risky  as  some  of  M.  Labiche's  plays  are,  none  of  them 
have  any  trace  or  taint  of  sentimentality ;  and  when 
they  are  acquitted  of  that  deadly  sin,  they  cannot  be 
fundamentally  immoral.  In  fact,  M.  Labiche  is  too 
healthy  to  take  kindly  to  vice ;  but  like  other  hearty 
natures,  like  Rabelais  and  like  Moliere,  he  is  not  always 
free  from  a  fancy  for  breadth  rather  than  length.  He 
has  the  old  French  set gaulois  rather  than  Attic  salt. 

If,  dropping  morality,  we  consult  Mr.  Arnold  as  to 


240  French  Dramatists. 

M.  Labiche's  right  to  a  seat  in  the  Academy,  we  shall 
have  no  difficulty  in  getting  an  answer.  In  the  essay 
on  the  '  Literary  Influence  of  Academies,"  Mr.  Arnold 
gives  us  Richelieu's  words  in  founding  the  French  Acad- 
emy :  its  "  principal  function  shall  be  to  work  with  all 
the  care  and  all  the  diligence  possible  at  giving  sure 
rules  to  our  language."  It  was  to  be  a  literary  tribunal. 
"  To  give  the  law,  the  tone,  to  literature,  and  that  tone 
a  high  one,  is  its  business."  Sainte-Beuve  said  that 
Richelieu  meant  it  to  be  a  haut  jury,  —  "a  sovereign 
organ  of  opinion."  And  M.  Renan  tells  us  that  "all 
ages  have  had  their  inferior  literature ;  but  the  great 
danger  of  our  time  is,  that  this  inferior  literature  tends 
more  and  more  to  get  the  upper  place.  No  one  has  the 
same  advantages  as  the  Academy  for  fighting  against 
this  mischief."  To  make  these  quotations  is  to  quash 
M.  Labiche's  title  to  a  seat  among  the  forty  jurists. 
But,  if  the  Academy  exists  for  such  high  aims,  why  is 
it  not  true  to  them  ?  How  many  of  the  dramatists  who 
now  have  seats  there  are  entitled  to  them  ?  M.  Victor 
Hugo  of  course  is  ;  and  equally,  of  course,  is  M.  fimile 
Augier,  for  he  is  a  master,  writing  in  the  grand  style. 
And  perhaps  M.  Jules  Sandeau  may  justly  claim  a  place 
for  his  '  Mademoiselle  de  la  Seigliere,'  and  also  for  his 
share  in  the  ever-admirable  'Gendre  de  M.  Poirier.' 
But  by  what  right  is  M.  Octave  Feuillet  there  ?  The 
empress  used  to  like  his  novels.  And  is  M.  Alexandre 
Dumas,  or  M.  Victorien  Sardou,  a  writer  who  can  speak 
with  "  the  authority  of  a  recognized  master  in  matters 
of  tone  and  taste  "  ?  M.  Dumas  is  strong  and  brilliant ; 
and  M.  Sardou  is  very  clever.  If  these  have  each  a  seat 
among  the  forty,  why  not  M.  Labiche  also  ?  He  is 
surely  not  more  out  of  place  than  they.  Their  election 


Eugene  Labiche.  241 

was  the  reward  of  skill  and  ability  and  success  :  his 
would  mean  no  more  and  no  less.  If  the  Academy  is 
what  Richelieu  meant  it  to  be,  M.  Labiche  belongs  out- 
side. If  its  duty  is  to  reward  success,  —  as  the  election 
of  M.  Feuillet,  M.  Dumas,  and  M.  Sardou  apparently 
asserts,  —  then  M.  Labiche  also  deserved  his  election ; 
for,  as  M.  fimile  Augier  tells  us  in  the  preface  from  which 
quotation  has  been  made  before,  M.  Labiche  is  a  master ; 
"and  without  hyperbole,  since  there  are  as  many  degrees 
of  mastership  as  there  are  regions  in  art,  the  important 
thing  is  to  be  a  master,  not  a  schoolboy.  It  is  in  a 
matter  like  this  that  Caesar's  phrase  is  so  true  :  '  Better 
to  be  the  first  in  a  village  than  the  second  at  Rome.'  I 
prefer  Teniers  to  Giulio  Romano,  and  Labiche  to  the 
elder  Cr^billon.  It  is  not  the  hazard  of  the  sentence 
which  brings  together  under  my  pen  the  names  of  La- 
biche and  of  Teniers.  There  are  striking  analogies 
between  these  two  masters.  There  is  at  first  the  same 
aspect  of  caricature :  there  is,  on  looking  closer,  the  same 
fineness  of  tone,  the  same  justness  of  expression,  the 
same  vivacity  of  movement."  And  here  follows  a  re- 
mark, already  cited,  but  repeated  now  because  it  is  the 
ultimate  expression  of  M.  Labiche's  ability :  "  The  foun- 
dation of  all  these  joyeusetts  d  toute  entrance  is  truth. 
Look  among  the  highest  works  of  our  generation,  seek 
for  a  comedy  of  more  profound  observation  than  the 
'Voyage  de  M.  Perrichon,'  or  of  more  philosophy  than 
the  '  Misanthrope  et  1'Auvergnat.'  Well,  Labiche  has 
ten  plays  of  this  strength  in  his  repertory." 

The  adverse  criticism  of  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes 
has  been  cited  :  in  due  course  of  time  the  Nouvelle 
Revue  bore  witness  in  his  favor.  A  long  essay  in  the 
younger  magazine  praised  M.  Labiche  very  highly,  and 


242  French  Dramatists. 

suggested  that  we  are  to  see  in  him  the  comic  underside 
of  the  realistic  movement  of  which  M.  Augier  and  M. 
Dumas  offer  the  more  serious  examples.  The  same 
writer  calls  him  half  a  Gaul  and  half  a  Parisian,  and 
then  draws  a  close  parallel  between  M.  Labiche  and 
LaFontaine,  the  spoilt  child  of  French  literature.  Here 
we  have  M.  Labiche's  name  linked  with  M.  Augier's 
and  M.  Dumas's.  What  M.  Augier  thinks  of  him  has 
already  been  quoted.  What  M.  Dumas  thinks  of  him 
is  equally  worthy  of  quotation.  In  a  brief  consideration 
of  the  present  state  of  the  French  stage,1  M.  Dumas 
takes  occasion  to  say  that  he  is  "  one  of  those  who 
laughs  and  is  glad  to  laugh  ...  at  '  Celimare  le  Bien- 
Aim6 '  and  the  'Voyage  de  M.  Perrichon,'  and  at  two  or 
three  other  of  the  plays  of  Labiche,  who,  in  parenthesis, 
is  one  of  the  finest  and  frankest  of  the  comic  poets 
who  have  existed  since  Plautus,  —  the  only  one,  perhaps, 
who  can  be  compared  to  him." 

Here  is  high  praise,  and  enough.  Likened  by  the 
Nouvelle  Revue  to  Jean  LaFontaine,  by  M.  Augier  to 
Teniers,  and  by  M.  Dumas  to  Plautus,  surely  M.  La- 
biche is  a  writer  of  no  common  quality,  and  well  worth 
the  study  of  all  who  seek  to  discover  the  secrets  of  the 
stage. 

1  Entr'actes,  iil  336.    (Paris  :  C.  LeVy,  1878.) 


CHAPTER  X. 

HENRI  MEILHAC  AND  LUDOVIC  HALEVY. 

No  doubt  it  may  surprise  some  theatre-goers  who 
are  not  special  students  of  the  stage  to  be  told  that 
the  authors  of  '  Froufrou '  are  the  authors  also  of 
the  '  Grand  Duchess  of  Ge'rolstein,'  and  of  the  '  Belle 
He"lene/  of  'Carmen,'  and  of  the  'Petit  Due.'  There 
are  a  few,  I  know,  who  think  that  '  Froufrou '  was 
written  by  M.  Victorien  Sardou,  and  who,  without 
thinking,  credit  Jacques  Offenbach  with  the  compo- 
sition of  the  words  as  well  as  the  music  of  the  '  Grand 
Duchess ; '  and,  as  for  '  Carmen,'  is  it  not  an  Italian 
opera  ?  and  is  not  the  book,  like  the  music,  the  work  of 
some  Italian  ?  As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  these  plays, 
unlike  as  they  are  to  each  other,  and  not  only  these,  but 
many  more,  —  not  a  few  of  them  fairly  well  known  to 
the  American  play-goer,  —  are  due  to  the  collaboration 
of  M.  Henri  Meilhac  and  M.  Ludovic  HaleVy. 

Born  in  1832,  M.  Henri  Meilhac,  like  M.  fimile  Zola, 
dealt  in  books  before  he  began  to  make  them.  He 
soon  gave  up  trade  for  journalism,  and  contributed 
with  pen  and  pencil  to  the  comic  Journal  pour  Rire. 
He  began  as  a  dramatist  in  1855,  with  a  two-act  play, 
at  the  Palais  Royal  theatre.  Like  the  first  pieces  of 
Scribe  and  of  M.  Sardou,  and  of  so  many  more  who 
have  afterward  abundantly  succeeded  on  the  stage,  this 
play  of  M.  Meilhac's  was  a  failure;  and  so  also  was 
his  next,  likewise  in  two  acts.  But  in  1856  the  'Sara- 
hs 


244  French  Dramatists. 

bande  du  Cardinal,'  a  delightful  little  comedy  in  one 
act,  met  with  favor  at  the  Gymnase.  It  was  followed 
by  two  or  three  other  comediettas  equally  clever.  In 
1859  M.  Meilhac  made  his  first  attempt  at  a  comedy  in 
five  acts ;  but  the  '  Petit-fils  de  Mascarille '  had  not  the 
good  fortune  of  his  ancestor,  whose  godfather  Moliere 
was. 

In  1860,  for  the  first  time,  M.  Meilhac  was  assisted 
by  M.  Ludovic  HaleVy ;  and  in  the  twenty  years  since 
then  their  names  have  been  linked  together  on  the 
title-pages  of  twoscore  or  more  plays  of  all  kinds, — 
drama,  comedy,  farce,  opera,  operetta,  and  ballet.  M. 
Meilhac's  new  partner  was  the  nephew  of  the  HaleVy 
who  is  best  known  out  of  France  as  the  composer  of 
the  'Jewess ;'  and  he  was  the  son  of  M.  L6on  HaleVy, 
poet,  philosopher,  and  playwright.  Two  years  younger 
than  M.  Henri  Meilhac,  M.  Ludovic  HaleVy  held  a 
place  in  the  French  civil  service  until  1858,  when  he 
resigned  to  devote  his  whole  time,  instead  of  his  spare 
time,  to  the  theatre.  As  the  son  of  a  dramatist  and 
the  nephew  of  a  popular  composer,  he  had  easy  access 
to  the  stage.  He  began  as  the  librettist-in-ordinary 
to  Offenbach,  for  whom  he  wrote  'Bata-clan'  in  1855, 
and  later  the  '  Chanson  de  Fortunio,'  the  '  Pont  des 
Soupirs,'  and  '  Orph6e  aux  Enfers.'  The  first  very  suc- 
cessful play  which  MM.  Meilhac  and  HaleVy  wrote  to- 
gether was  the  book  of  an  operetta  for  Offenbach  ;  and 
it  was  possibly  the  good  fortune  of  this  first  venture 
which  finally  affirmed  the  partnership.  Before  the  tri- 
umph of  the  'Belle  H61ene,'  in  1864,  the  collaboration 
had  been  tentative,  as  it  were :  after  that,  it  was  as 
though  the  articles  had  been  definitely  ratified ;  not 
that  either  of  the  parties  has  not  now  and  then  in- 


Henri  Meilhac  and  Ludovic  Halevy.         245 

dulged  in  outside  speculations,  trying  a  play  alone,  or 
with  an  outsider,  but  this  is  without  prejudice  to  the 
permanent  partnership. 

This  kind  of  literary  union,  the  long-continued  con- 
junction of  two  kindred  spirits,  is  better  understood 
amongst  us  than  the  indiscriminate  collaboration  which 
marks  the  dramatic  career  of  M.  Eugene  Labiche,  for 
instance.  Both  kinds  were  usual  enough  on  our  stage 
in  the  days  of  Elizabeth  ;  but  we  can  recall  the  ever- 
memorable  example  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  while 
we  forget  the  chance  associations  of  Marston,  Dekker, 
Chapman,  and  Ben  Jonson.  And  in  contemporary  lite- 
rature we  have  before  us  the  French  tales  of  MM. 
Erckmann-Chatrian,  and  the  English  novels  of  Messrs. 
Besant  and  Rice.  The  fact  that  such  a  union  endures 
is  proof  enough  that  it  is  advantageous.  A  long-lasting 
collaboration  like  this  of  MM.  Meilhac  and  Halevy 
must  needs  be  the  result  of  a  strong  sympathy  and  a 
sharp  contrast  of  character,  as  well  as  of  the  possession 
by  one  of  literary  qualities  which  supplement  those  of 
the  other. 

One  of  the  first  things  noticed  by  an  American 
student  of  French  dramatic  literature  is  that  the  chief 
Parisian  critics  generally  refer  to  the  joint  work  of 
these  two  writers  as  the  plays  of  M.  Meilhac,  leaving 
M.  Halevy  altogether  in  the  shade.  At  first  this  seems 
a  curious  injustice  ;  but  the  reason  is  not  far  to  seek. 
It  is  not  that  M.  HaleVy  is  some  two  years  the  junior 
of  M.  Meilhac :  it  lies  rather  in  the  quality  of  their 
respective  abilities.  M.  Meilhac  has  the  more  mascu- 
line style ;  and  so  the  literary  progeny  of  the  couple 
bear  rather  his  name  than  his  associate's.  M.  Meilhac 
has  the  strength  of  marked  individuality,  he  has  a  style 


246  French  Dramatists. 

of  his  own.  one  can  tell  his  touch ;  while  M.  Halevy 
is  merely  a  clever  French  dramatist  of  the  more  con- 
ventional pattern.  This  we  detect  by  considering  the 
plays  which  each  has  put  forth  alone,  and  unaided  by 
the  other.  Pausing  before  one  of  M.  Meilhac's  works, 
we  are  in  no  doubt  as  to  the  maker ;  and  there  is  no 
need  to  seek  in  a  corner  for  the  Meilhac  inv*  et  del* ; 
while  M.  Hal6vy's  clever  pictures  of  Parisian  society, 
less  distinct  in  their  individuality,  might  be  perhaps 
passed  over  as  belonging  simply  to  the  "  Modern 
French  School." 

Before  finally  joining  with  M.  HaleVy,  M.  Meilhac 
wrote  two  comedies  in  five  acts,  of  high  aim  and  skil- 
ful execution ;  and  two  other  five-act  pieces  have  been 
written  by  MM.  Meilhac  and  HaleVy  together.  The 
1  Vertu  de  C£limene  '  and  the  '  Petit-fils  de  Mascarille  ' 
are  by  the  elder  partner :  '  Fanny  Lear '  and  '  Froufrou ' 
are  the  work  of  the  firm.  Yet  in  these  last  two  it  is 
difficult  to  see  any  trace  of  M.  HaleVy's  handiwork. 
Allowing  for  the  growth  of  M.  Meilhac's  intellect  dur- 
ing the  eight  or  ten  years  which  intervened  between 
the  work  alone  and  the  work  with  his  associate,  and 
allowing  for  the  improvement  in  the  mechanism  of 
play-making,  I  see  no  reason  why  M.  Meilhac  might 
not  have  written  '  Fanny  Lear '  and  '  Froufrou '  sub- 
stantially as  they  are,  had  he  never  met  M.  HaleVy ; 
but  it  is  inconceivable  that  M.  Hal6vy  alone  could  have 
attained  so  high  an  elevation,  or  have  gained  so  full  a 
comic  force.  Perhaps,  however,  M.  HaleVy  deserves 
credit  for  the  better  technical  construction  of  the  later 
plays  :  merely  in  their  mechanism,  the  first  three  acts 
of  'Froufrou'  are  marvellously  skilful.  And  perhaps, 
also,  his  is  a  certain  softening  humor,  which  is  the 


Henri  Meilhac  and  Ludovic  Hal'evy.        247 

cause  that  the  two  later  plays,  written  by  both  part- 
ners, are  not  so  hard  in  their  brilliance  as  the  two  ear- 
lier comedies,  the  work  of  M.  Meilhac  alone. 

It  may  seem  something  like  a  discussion  of  infinitesi- 
mals ;  but  I  think  M.  HaleVy's  co-operation  has  given 
M.  Heilhac's  plays  a  fuller  ethical  richness.  To  the 
younger  writer  is  due  a  simple  but  direct  irony,  as  well 
as  a  lightsome  and  laughing  desire  to  point  a  moral  when 
occasion  serves.  It  happens  that  M.  HaleVy  has  put 
forth  two  volumes  of  sketches  and  stories,  —  '  Monsieur 
et  Madame  Cardinal '  and  the  '  Petites  Cardinal,'  in 
which  the  chief  characters  are  two  sisters  in  the  ballet 
of  the  opera,  and  their  parents,  —  as  disreputable  an  old 
couple  as  you  could  find  anywhere  in  Paris.  The  gar- 
rulity, and,  so  to  speak,  bonhomie,  of  the  old  wife,  and 
the  highly  humorous  linking  of  dignity  and  depravity 
in  the  husband,  recall  the  somewhat  similar  figures  of 
M.  and  Mme.  Pipelet  in  Sue's  '  Mysteries  of  Paris.' 
(Here  occasion  offers  to  note  that  it  was  as  the  princi- 
pality of  the  marvellous  young  man  who  plays  the  part 
of  Providence  in  Sue's  book  that  the  Grand  Duchy  of 
Ge"rolstein  made  its  first  appearance  in  fiction.)  M.  Ha- 
levy's  touch  is  lighter  than  Sue's,  and  his  humor  is  less 
oily.  He  succeeds  in  giving  M.  and  Mme.  Cardinal  more 
color,  and  less  monotony,  than  Sue  endowed  his  M.  and 
Mme.  Pipelet  with.  The  type  is  common  enough,  I 
fancy,  in  Paris,  where  the  porter's  lodge  is  the  stepping- 
stone  to  the  stage-box ;  and  a  comparison  of  the  stud- 
ies of  it,  made  in  1840  with  those  made  in  1870  and 
1880,  is  not  uninstructive.  I  have  mentioned  M.  Hale"- 
vy's  two  volumes  here,  because  they  are  his  only  con- 
siderable publications  apart  from  M.  Meilhac's,  and 
because  also  I  think  I  can  detect  in  them  an  ironical 


248  French  Dramatists. 

morality  not  to  be  discovered  in  M.  Meilhac's  work. 
Most  of  these  little  sketches  were  written  for  the  Vie 
Parisienne,  and  this  is  to  say  that  they  are  not  intend- 
ed virg inibus  puerisque  ;  but  the  attitude  of  the  author 
is  that  of  a  half-pitying,  half-conterrjptuous  moralist. 
Whenever  the  same  ironical  morality  is  to  be  detected 
in  the  plays  written  by  both  authors  together,  it  seems 
to  me  fair  to  give  M.  HaleVy  the  greater  share  of  the 
credit ;  and  even  in  stories  written  for  the  Vie  Parisi- 
enne,  and  in  plays  written  for  the  Palais  Royal  theatre, 
the  discovery  may  be  made  far  more  often  than  the 
chance  reader  might  suppose. 

Certainly  I  shall  not  hold  up  a  play  written  to  please 
the  public  of  the  Palais  Royal,  or  even  of  the  Gymnase, 
as  a  model  of  all  the  virtues.  Nor  need  it  be,  on  the 
other  hand,  an  embodiment  of  all  the  cardinal  sins. 
The  frequenters  of  the  Palais  Royal  theatre  are  not 
babes.  Young  people  of  either  sex  are  not  taken 
there ;  only  the  emancipated  gain  admittance ;  and  to 
the  seasoned  sinners  who  haunt  theatres  of  this  type 
these  plays  by  MM.  Meilhac  and  HaleVy  are  harmless. 
Indeed,  I  do  not  recall  any  play  of  theirs  which  could 
hurt  any  one  capable  of  understanding  it.  Most  of 
their  plays  are  not  to  be  recommended  to  ignorant 
innocence  or  to  fragile  virtue.  They  are  not  meant  for 
young  men  and  maidens.  They  are  not  wholly  free 
from  the  taint  which  is  to  be  detected  in  nearly  all 
French  fiction.  The  mark  of  the  beast  is  set  on  not  a 
little  of  the  work  done  by  the  strongest  men  in  France. 
M.  Meilhac  is  too  clean  and  too  clever  ever  to  delve  in 
indecency  from  mere  wantonness.  He  has  no  liking  for 
vice :  but  his  virtue  sits  easily  on  him ;  and,  though  he 
is  sound  on  the  main  question,  he  looks  upon  the  vaga- 


Henri  Meilhac  and  Ludovic  Halevy.        249 

ries  of  others  with  a  gentle  eye.  M.  Halevy,  it  seems  to 
me,  is  made  of  somewhat  sterner  stuff.  He  raises  a 
warning  voice  now  and  then,  —  in  '  Fanny  Lear,'  for 
instance,  the  moral  is  pointed  explicitly ;  and,  even 
where  there  is  no  moral  tagged  to  the  fable,  he  who  has 
eyes  to  see,  and  ears  to  hear,  can  find  "  a  terrible  exam- 
ple "  in  almost  any  of  these  plays,  even  the  lightest. 
Considered  aright,  there  is  a  moral  lesson  in  '  Froufrou  ; ' 
and,  as  M.  Claretie  said  of  the  authors  when  it  was  first 
acted,  "  Their  work  is  like  a  red-hot  iron  dipped  in  rice- 
powder  :  it  smells  good,  but  it  cauterizes  too."  For 
the  congregation  to  which  it  was  delivered,  there  is  a 
sermon  in  '  Toto  chez  Tata,'  perhaps  the  piece  in  which, 
above  all  others,  the  muse  seems  Gallic  and  tgrillarde, 
That  is  a  touch  of  real  truth,  and  so  of  a  true  morality, 
where  Tata,  the  fashionable  courtesan,  leaning  over  her 
stairs  as  Toto  the  schoolboy  bears  off  her  elderly  lover, 
and  laughing  at  him,  cries  out,  "  You,  my  little  fellow, 
I'll  catch  you  again  in  four  or  five  years  !  "  And  a  cold 
and  cutting  stroke  it  is  a  little  earlier  in  the  same  little 
comedy,  where  Toto,  left  alone  in  Tata's  parlor,  negli- 
gently turns  over  her  basket  of  visiting-cards,  and  sees 
"  names  which  he  knew  because  he  had  learnt  them  by 
heart  in  his  history  of  France."  Still,  in  spite  of  this 
truth  and  morality,  I  do  not  advice  the  reading  of  '  Toto 
chez  Tata '  in  young  ladies'  seminaries.  Young  ladies 
in  Paris  do  not  go  to  hear  Madame  Chaumont,  for  whom 
'  Toto  '  was  written ;  nor  is  the  Variete"s,  where  it  was 
played,  a  place  where  a  girl  can  take  her  mother. 

It  was  at  the  Varies  in  December,  1864,  that  the 
'  Belle  Helene '  was  produced  :  this  was  the  first  of  half 
a  score  of  plays,  written  by  MM.  Meilhac  and  Halevy,  for 
which  Jacques  Offenbach  composed  the  music.  Chief 


250  French  Dramatists. 

among  these  are  '  Barbe-bleue,'  the  '  Grand  Duchess 
of  Gerolstein,'  the  '  Brigands,'  and  '  Perichole.'  When 
we  recall  the  fact  that  these  five  operas  are  the  most 
widely  known,  the  most  popular,  and  by  far  the  best, 
of  M.  Offenbach's  works,  there  is  no  need  to  dwell  on 
his  indebtedness  to  MM.  Meilhac  and  HaleVy,  or  to 
point  out  how  important  a  thing  the  quality  of  the 
opera-book  is  to  the  composer  of  the  score.  When  we 
recall  that  the  '  Grand  Duchess '  and  '  Belle  He"lene ' 
are  the  typical  optras-bouffes,  and  that  other  optras- 
bouffes  are  mostly  attempts  to  imitate  them  or  emulate 
them,  there  is  no  need  to  dwell  on  the  fact  that  optra- 
bouffe  as  we  now  know  it  owes  as  much  to  MM.  Meil- 
hac and  HaleVy  as  it  does  to  Jacques  Offenbach.  So 
long  as  MM.  Meilhac  and  HaleVy  furnished  Offenbach's 
books  for  him,  the  resultant  was  always  a  work  of  art, 
with  the  restraint  which  art  demands.  So  soon  as  he 
went  to  other  librettists,  the  product  of  the  conjunction 
became  violent,  vulgar,  and  inartistic ;  above  all,  the 
"moral  game-flavor"  which  Ambros  and  Mr.  Apthorp 
find  in  Offenbach's  work  was  intensified  beyond  endur- 
ance by  decent  people.  What  MM.  Meilhac  and  Ha- 
leVy  kept  subordinate,  and  at  best  suggested,  was  by 
their  copyists  paraded  and  emphasized.  In  short,  it  is 
not  unjust  to  say  that  the  credit  of  optra-bouffe  belongs 
to  MM.  Meilhac  and  HalcVy,  and  the  discredit  of  it 
belongs  to  the  feebler  and  louder  librettists  who  tried 
hard  to  give  a  double  meaning  to  words  without  any. 

The  earlier  librettos  which  MM.  Meilhac  and  Hal6vy 
wrote  for  Offenbach  were  admirably  made :  they  are 
models  of  what  a  comic-opera  book  should  be.  I  cannot 
well  imagine  a  better  bit  of  work  of  its  kind  than  the 
'Belle  HeUene,'  or  the  'Grand  Duchess.'  Plot  and 


Henri  Meilhac  and  Ludovic  ffalevy.        251 

dialogue  and  characters,  —  all  are  admirable,  and  no- 
where are  they  wanting.  Since  MM.  Meilhac  and 
HaleVy  have  ceased  writing  for  Offenbach,  they  have 
done  several  books  for  M.  Charles  Lecocq :  among 
them  are  the  'Petit  Due'  and  the  'Grande  Demoiselle.' 
These  are  rather  light  comic  operas  than  true  operas- 
bouffes.  But,  if  there  is  an  elevation  in  the  style  of 
the  music'  there  is  an  emphatic  falling-off  in  the  qual- 
ity of  the  words.  From  the  '  Grand  Duchess '  to  the 
'Petit  Due'  is  a  great  descent.  The  former  was  a 
genuine  play,  complete  and  self-contained  :  the  latter 
is  a  careless  trifle,  a  mere  outline  sketch  for  the  com- 
poser to  fill  up.  The  story,  akin  in  subject  to  Mr.  Tom 
Taylor's  fine  historical  drama,  '  Clancarty,'  is  pretty ; 
but  there  is  no  trace  of  the  true  poetry  which  made 
the  farewell  letter  of  'Perichole'  so  touching,  or  of  the 
true  comic  force  which  projected  G6ne"ral  Bourn.  'Car- 
men,' which,  like  'Perichole,'  owes  the  suggestion  of 
its  plot  and  characters  to  Prosper  Merime'e,  is  little 
more  than  the  task-work  of  the  two  well -trained  play- 
makers.  It  was  sufficient  for  its  purpose,  no  more  and 
no  less. 

Of  all  the  opera-books  of  MM.  Meilhac  and  HaleVy, 
that  one  is  easily  first  and  foremost  which  has  for  its 
heroine  the  Helen  of  Troy,  whom  Marlowe's  Faustus 
declared,  — 

"  Fairer  than  the  evening  air, 
Clad  in  the  beauty  of  a  thousand  stars." 

In  the  'Belle  Hdene'  we  see  the  higher  wit  of  M. 
Meilhac.  M.  Halevy  had  been  at  the  same  college  with 
him,  and  they  had  pored  together  over  the  same  legends 
of  old  time.  But,  working  without  M.  Meilhac  on 
'  Orphe'e  aux  Enfers,'  M.  HaleVy  showed  his  inferiority ; 


252  French  Dramatists. 

for  '  Orphee  '  is  the  old-fashioned  anachronistic  skit  on 
antiquity,  —  funny,  if  you  will,  but  with  a  fun  often 
labored,  not  to  say  forced,  —  the  fun  of  physical  incon- 
gruity and  exaggeration.  When,  however,  M.  Halevy 
wrote  his  next  play  of  Greek  life,  M.  Meilhac's  finer 
insight  prevailed  ;  and  in  the  '  Belle  Helene '  the  fun, 
easy  and  flowing,  is  of  a  very  high  quality,  and  it  has 
root  in  mental,  not  physical  incongruity.  Here,  indeed, 
is  the  humorous  touchstone  of  a  whole  system  of  gov- 
ernment and  of  theology.  And  allowing  for  the  varia- 
tions made  with  comic  intent,  it  is  altogether  Greek  in 
spirit,  —  so  Greek,  in  fact,  that  I  doubt  whether  any  one 
who  has  not  given  his  days  and  nights  to  the  study  of 
Homer  and  of  the  tragedians,  and  who  has  not  thus 
taken  in  by  the  pores  the  subtle  essence  of  Hellenic 
life  and  literature,  can  truly  appreciate  this  French  farce. 
Of  its  kind  the  '  Belle  Helene '  seems  to  me  a  great 
work :  the  kind,  of  a  truth,  is  not  great ;  but  it  is  great 
in  its  kind.  Planches  '  Golden  Fleece '  is  in  the  same 
vein,  but  the  ore  is  not  so  rich.  Frere's  '  Loves  of  the 
Triangles,'  and  some  of  his  Anti-Jacobin  writing,  are 
perhaps  as  good  in  quality ;  but  the  subjects  are  inferior 
and  temporary.  Scarron's  vulgar  burlesques  and  the 
cheap  parodies  of  many  contemporary  English  play- 
makers  are  not  to  be  mentioned  in  the  same  breath 
with  this  scholarly  fooling.  There  is  something  in  the 
French  genius  akin  to  the  Greek  ;  and  here  was  a  Gallic 
wit  who  could  turn  a  Hellenic  love-tale  inside  out,  and 
wring  the  uttermost  drop  of  fun  from  it,  without  recourse 
to  the  devices  of  the  booth  at  the  fair,  —  the  false  nose 
or  the  simulation  of  needless  ugliness.  The  French 
play,  comic  as  it  was,  did  not  suggest  hysteria  or  epi- 
lepsy ;  and  it  was  not  so  lacking  in  grace  that  we  could 


Henri  Meilhac  and  Ludovic  Hal'evy.         253 

not  recall  the  original  story  without  a  shudder.  There 
is  no  shattering  of  an  ideal ;  and  one  cannot  reproach 
the  authors  of  the  '  Belle  Helene'  with  what  Theophras- 
tus  Such  calls  "  debasing  the  moral  currency,  lowering 
the  value  of  every  inspiring  fact  and  tradition."  They 
have  not,  to  use  the  quotation  from  La  Bruyere  which 
Mr.  Such  takes  as  the  text  of  the  essay  from  which  I 
have  just  borrowed,  —  they  have  not  seen  the  ridiculous 
where  it  was  not,  to  the  spoiling  of  their  own  taste  and 
that  of  others ;  but  they  have  seen  what  was  ridiculous 
in  the  old  Hellenic  legend,  and  they  have  set  it  forth 
with  grace,  and  in  a  manner  which  pleases.  (As  to  the 
"  instruction  "  which  La  Bruyere  also  requires,  I  will 
say  nought.  We  must  not  ask  too  much  from  one  of 
Offenbach's  opera-books.)  To  the  ridiculous  from  the 
sublime  is  but  a  hair's  breadth ;  and  who  shall  say  on 
which  side  of  the  line  Menelaus  stands,  this  epic  hus- 
band ?  And  Helen  herself,  if  half  the  tales  about  her 
were  true,  is  not  a  lady  who  would  be  received  in  society 
nowadays,  except  perhaps  in  princely  circles.  I  cannot 
but  think  that  after  all,  MM.  Meilhac  and  Halevy  may 
have  given  us  a  better  portrait  of  the  lovely  daughter 
of  Leda  and  the  swan,  than  hangs  in  any  gallery  of  his- 
torical paintings.  What  a  living,  loving  bit  of  flesh 
and  blood  their  fair  Helen  is  !  —  Greek  to  the  back-bone, 
but  a  Greek  who  had  read  the  dramas  of  M.  Victor 
Hugo.  With  her  "fatality,"  she  is  a  true  heroine  of 
the  Romanticists.  And  Paris,  as  Homer  shows  him  to 
us, — has  he  not  something  of  the  comic-opera  tenor  ? 
And  Achilles,  as  thick-witted,  no  doubt,  as  he  was  thin- 
skinned,  —  he  must  have  been  very  much  the  sort  of  a 
bore  he  appears  to  us  in  M.  Meilhac's  play.  But  above 
all  these  figments  of  antiquity,  conceived  as  they  are 


254  French  Dramatists. 

with  high  comic  richness  and  strength,  towers  the  busi- 
ness-like priest  Calchas,  the  Augur  we  cannot  meet 
without  laughter,  the  quintessence  of  classical  mythol- 
ogy, an  unforgettable  figure  of  the  fullest  comic  force. 

Surpassed  only  by  the  '  Belle  Helene '  is  the  '  Grand 
Duchess  of  Ge"rolstein.'  It  is  more  than  fifteen  years 
since  all  the  world  went  to  Paris  to  see  an  Exposition 
Universelle,  and  to  gaze  at  the  "  sabre  of  my  sire ; "  and 
since  a  Russian  emperor,  going  to  hear  the  operetta 
said  to  have  been  suggested  by  the  freak  of  a  Russian 
empress,  sat  incognito  in  one  stage-box  of  the  little 
Varie'te's  theatre,  and,  glancing  up,  saw  a  Russian  grand 
duke  in  the  other.  It  is  fifteen  years  now  since  the 
tiny  army  of  her  Grand-ducal  Highness  took  New 
York  by  storm,  and  since  the  American  play-goer 
hummed  his  love  for  the  military,  and  walked  from  the 
French  Theatre  along  Fourteenth  Street  to  Delmoni- 
co's  to  supper,  sabring  the  waiters  there  with  the  vene- 
rated weapon  of  her  sire.  The  French  Theatre  is  no 
more  ;  and  Delmonico's  is  no  longer  at  that  Fourteenth- 
street  corner  ;  and  her  Highness  Mile.  Tost^e  is  dead, 
and  so  is  Offenbach  himself;  and  his  sprightly  tunes 
have  had  the  fate  of  all  over-popular  airs,  and  are  for- 
gotten now.  Ou  sont  les  neiges  d  'an fan  f 

It  has  been  said  that  the  authors  regretted  having 
written  the  '  Grand  Duchess,'  because  the  irony  of 
history  soon  made  a  joke  on  Teutonic  powers  and  prin- 
cipalities seem  like  unpatriotic  satire.  Certainly  they 
had  no  reason  to  be  ashamed  of  the  literary  quality  of 
their  work :  in  its  class  it  yields  only  to  its  predeces- 
sor. There  is  no  single  figure  as  fine  as  Calchas.  G6- 
n^ral  Bourn  is  a  coarser  outline  ;  but  how  humorous  and 
how  firm  is  the  drawing  of  Prince  Paul  and  Baron 


Henri  Meilhac  and  Ludovic  Halevy.         255 

Grog!  and  her  Highness  herself  may  be  thought  a 
cleverer  sketch  of  youthful  femininity  than  even  the 
Hellenic  Helen.  It  is  hard  to  judge  the  play  now. 
Custom  has  worn  its  freshness,  and  made  it  too  familiar : 
we  know  it  too  well  to  criticise  it  clearly.  Besides,  the 
actors  have  now  overlaid  the  action  with  overmuch 
"  business."  In  spite  of  all  these  difficulties,  the  merits 
of  the  piece  are  sufficiently  obvious.  Its  constructive 
skill  can  be  remarked  :  the  first  act,  for  example,  is  one 
of  the  best  bits  of  exposition  on  the  modern  French 
stage. 

Besides  these  plays  for  music,  and  besides  the  more 
important  five-act  comedies  to  be  considered  later,  MM. 
Meilhac  and  HaleVy  are  the  authors  of  thirty  or  forty 
comic  dramas,  —  as  they  would  be  called  on  the  English 
stage,  —  or  farce-comedies  in  one,  two,  three,  four,  and 
even  five  acts,  ranging  in  aim  from  the  gentle  satire  of 
sentimentality  in  the  '  Veuve '  to  the  outspoken  farce 
of  the  '  ReVeillon.'  Among  the  best  of  the  longer  of 
these  comic  plays  are  'Tricoche  et  Cacolet '  and  the 
'  Boule.'  Both  were  written  for  the  Palais  Royal ;  and 
they  are  models  of  the  new  dramatic  species  which 
came  into  existence  at  that  theatre  about  twenty  years 
ago,  as  M.  Francisque  Sarcey  recently  reminded  us  in 
his  interesting  article  on  the  Palais  Royal  in  the  Nine- 
teenth Century,  This  new  style  of  comic  play  may  be 
termed  realistic  farce,  —  realistic,  because  it  starts  from 
every-day  life  and  the  most  matter-of-fact  conditions ; 
and  farce,  because  it  uses  its  exact  facts  only  to  further 
its  fantasy  and  extravagance.  Consider  the  '  Boule.' 
Its  first  act  is  a  model  of  accurate  observation :  it  is  a 
transcript  from  life  ;  it  is  an  inside  view  of  a  common- 
place French  household  which  incompatibility  of  tern- 


256  French  Dramatists. 

per  has  made  unsupportable.  And  then  take  the  follow- 
ing acts,  and  see  how,  on  this  foundation  of  fact,  and 
screened  by  an  outward  semblance  of  realism,  there  is 
erected  the  most  laughable  superstructure  of  fantastic 
farce.  I  remember  hearing  one  of  the  two  great  come- 
dians of  the  Theatre  Fran^ais,  M.  Coquelin,  praise  a 
comic  actor  of  the  Variet^s  whom  we  had  lately  seen  in 
a  rather  cheap  and  flimsy  farce,  because  he  combined  "la 
v6rit6  la  plus  absolue  avec  la  fantaisie  la  plus  pure."  l 
And  this  is  the  merit  of  the  '  Boule  : '  its  most  humor- 
ous inventions  have  their  roots  in  the  truth. 

Better  even  than  the  '  Boule '  is  '  Tricoche  et  Cacolet,' 
which  is  the  name  of  a  firm  of  private  detectives  whose 
exploits  and  devices  surpass  those  imagined  by  Poe 
in  America,  by  Mr.  Wilkie  Collins  in  England,  and 
by  Gaboriau  in  France.  The  manifold  disguises  and 
impersonations  of  the  two  partners  when  seeking  to 
outwit  each  other  are  as  well-motived,  and  as  fertile 
in  comic  effect,  as  any  of  the  attempts  of  Crispin,  or 
of  some  other  of  Regnard's  interchangeable  valets.  Is 
not  even  the  '  L6gataire  Universel,'  Regnard's  master- 
piece, overrated  ?  To  me  it  is  neither  higher  comedy, 
nor  more  provocative  of  laughter,  than  either  the 
'  Boule,'  or  '  Tricoche  et  Cacolet ; '  and  the  modern 
plays,  as  I  have  said,  are  based  on  a  study  of  life  as  it 
is ;  while  the  figures  of  the  older  comedies  are  frankly 
conventional.  Nowhere  in  Regnard  is  there  a  situation 
equal  in  comic  power  to  that  in  the  final  act  of  the 
'  R6veillon,'  —  a  situation  Moliere  would  have  been  glad 
to  treat. 

Especially  to  be  commended  in  '  Tricoche  et  Cacolet ' 
is  the  satire  of  the  hysterical  sentimentality  and  of  the 

1  "  The  most  absolute  truth  with  the  purest  fantasy." 


Henri  Meilhac  and  Ludovic  Hal'evy.        257 

forced  emotions  born  of  luxury  and  idleness.  Just  as 
the  Belle  Helene  herself  is  a  heroine  of  Hugo  or  the 
elder  Dumas,  so  the  Bernardine  of  this  play  is  a  heroine 
of  M.  Octave  Feuillet.  The  parody  of  the  amorous 
intrigue  which  is  the  staple  of  so  many  French  plays 
is  as  wholesome  as  it  is  exhilarating.  Absurdity  is  a 
deadly  shower-bath  to  sentimentalism.  The  method 
of  Meilhac  and  HaleVy  in  sketching  this  couple  is  not 
unlike  that  employed  by  Mr.  W.  S.  Gilbert  in  '  H.  M.  S. 
Pinafore '  and  the  '  Pirates  of  Penzance.'  Especially  to 
be  noted  is  the  same  perfectly  serious  pushing  of  the 
dramatic  commonplaces  to  an  absurd  conclusion.  There 
is  the  same  kind  of  humor  too,  and  the  same  girding  at 
the  stock-tricks  of  stage-craft,  in  '  H.  M.  S.  Pinafore ' 
at  the  swopping  of  children  in  the  cradle,  and  in  '  Tri- 
coche  et  Cacolet '  at  the  "  portrait  of  my  mother,"  which 
has  drawn  so  many  tears  in  modern  melodrama.  Even 
the  exaggerated  sense  of  duty  which  bound  the  'pren- 
tice to  the  pirates  also  holds  firmly  the  conscience  of 
Bernardine.  But  MM.  Meilhac  and  Halevy,  having 
made  one  success,  did  not  further  attempt  the  same 
kind  of  pleasantry,  —  wiser  in  this  than  Mr.  Gilbert, 
who  seems  to  find  it  hard  to  write  any  thing  else. 

As  in  the  '  Chateau  a  Toto '  MM.  Meilhac  and  HaleVy 
had  made  a  modern  perversion  of  the  '  Dame  Blanche,' 
so  in  the  '  Cigale '  did  they  dress  up  afresh  the  story 
of  the  'Fille  du  Regiment.'  As  the  poet  asks, — 

"  Ah,  World  of  ours,  are  you  so  gray, 

And  weary,  World,  of  spinning, 
That  you  repeat  the  tales  to-day 

You  told  at  the  beginning  ? 
For  lo  !  the  same  old  myths  that  made 

The  early  stage-successes, 
Still  hold  the  boards,  and  still  are  played 

With  new  effects  and  dresses." 


258  French  Dramatists. 

I  have  cited  the  'Cigale,'  not  because  it  is  a  very 
good  play,  for  it  is  not,  but  because  it  shows  the  present 
carelessness  of  French  dramatists  in  regard  to  dramatic 
construction.  The  '  Cigale '  is  a  very  clever  bit  of 
work :  but  it  has  the  slightest  of  plots,  and  this  made 
out  of  old  cloth ;  and  the  situations,  in  so  far  as  there 
are  any,  follow  each  other  as  best  they  may.  It  is  not 
really  a  play :  it  is  a  mere  sketch  touched  up  with 
Parisianisms,  "local  hits,"  and  the  wit  of  the  moment. 
This  substitution  of  an  off-hand  sketch  for  a  full-sized 
picture  can  better  be  borne  in  a  little  one-act  play  than 
in  a  more  ambitious  work  in  three  or  four  acts. 

And  of  one-act  plays  Meilhac  and  HaleVy  have  writ- 
ten a  score  or  more,  —  delightful  little  genre  pictures 
like  the  '  fit6  de  Saint-Martin,'  simple  pastels  like 
'Toto  chez  Tata,'  and  vigorous  caricatures  like  the 
'  Photographe '  or  the  'Br^silien.'  The  Frenchman 
invented  the  ruffle,  says  Emerson  :  the  Englishman 
added  the  shirt.  These  little  dramatic  trifles  are  French 
ruffles.  In  the  beginning  of  his  theatrical  career  M. 
Meilhac  did  little  comedies  like  the  '  Sarabande '  and 
the  '  Autographe,'  in  the  Scribe  formula, — dramatized 
anecdotes,  but  fresher  in  wit,  and  livelier  in  fancy,  than 
Scribe's.  This  early  work  was  far  more  regular  than 
we  find  in  some  of  his  latest,  bright  as  these  are.  The 
'  Petit  Hotel,'  for  instance,  and  '  Lolotte,'  are  etchings, 
as  it  were,  instantaneous  photographs  of  certain  aspects 
of  life  in  the  city  by  the  Seine,  or  stray  paragraphs  of 
the  latest  news  from  Paris. 

It  is  perhaps  not  too  much  to  say  that  Meilhac  and 
Halevy  are  seen  at  their  best  in  these  one-act  plays. 
They  hit  better  with  a  single-barrel  than  with  a  re- 
volver. In  their  five-act  plays,  whether  serious  like 


Henri  Meilhac  and  Ludovic  Halevy.        259 

'Fanny  Lear,'  or  comic  like  the  'Vie  Parisienne,'  the 
interest  is  scattered,  and  we  have  a  series  of  episodes 
rather  than  a  single  story.  Just  as  the  egg  of  the  jelly- 
fish is  girt  by  circles  which  tighten  slowly  until  the 
ovoid  form  is  cut  into  disks  of  independent  life,  so,  if 
the  four  intermissions  of  some  of  Meilhac  and  HaleVy's 
full-sized  plays  were  but  a  little  longer  and  wider  and 
deeper,  they  would  divide  the  piece  into  five  separate 
plays,  any  one  of  which  could  fairly  hope  for  success 
by  itself.  I  have  heard  that  the  *  Roi  Candaule '  was 
originally  an  act  of  the  '  Boule ; '  and  the  '  Photographe  ' 
seems  as  though  it  had  dropped  from  the  'Vie  Pari- 
sienne'  by  mistake.  In  M.  Meilhac's  earlier  five-act 
plays,  the  'Vertu  de  Celimene'  and  the  '  Petit-fils  de 
Mascarille,'  there  is  great  power  of  conception,  a  real 
grip  on  character ;  but  the  main  action  is  clogged  with 
tardy  incidents,  and  so  the  momentum  is  lost.  A  rifle- 
ball  hits  the  bull's  eye  more  surely  than  a  charge  of 
buckshot :  only  when  they  made  '  Froufrou '  had  they 
any  use  for  a  rifle.  In  both  these  early  comedies  of 
M.  Meilhac  there  is,  as  their  titles  show,  an  inten- 
tion of  modelling  on  Moliere,  and  of  carrying  on  his 
work  after  a  lapse  of  two  centuries.  In  the  '  Petit-fils 
de  Mascarille '  there  are  touches  not  unworthy  of  the 
original  inventor  of  Mascarille  :  one  scene  in  particular, 
between  Clavarot  and  the  impudent  valet  Jean,  would 
have  been  appreciated  not  a  little  by  the  author  of  the 
'Bourgeois  Gentilhomme.' 

In  both  of  these  earlier  comedies  of  M.  Meilhac's, 
and  especially  in  the  '  Vertu  de  Celimene,'  besides  the 
influence  of  Moliere,  and  even  more  potent  than  that, 
is  to  be  seen  the  influence  of  the  new  school  of  M. 
Alexandre  Dumas  fils.  And  the  inclination  toward 


260  French  Dramatists. 

the  strong,  not  to  say  violent  emotions  which  Dumas 
and  Augier  had  imported  into  comedy  is  still  more  evi- 
dent in  '  Fanny  Lear,'  the  first  five-act  comedy  which 
MM.  Meilhac  and  Halevy  wrote  together,  and  which 
was  brought  out  in  1868.  The  final  situation  is  one 
of  truth  and  immense  effectiveness,  and  there  is  great 
vigor  in  the  creation  of  character.  The  decrepit  old 
rake,  the  Marquis  de  Noriolis,  feeble  in  his  folly,  and 
wandering  in  his  helplessness,  and  yet  irresistible  when 
aroused, — this  is  a  striking  figure;  and  still  more  strik- 
ing is  the  portrait  of  his  wife,  now  the  Marquise  de 
Noriolis,  but  once  Fanny  Lear,  the  adventuress,  —  a 
woman  who  has  youth,  beauty,  wealth,  every  thing 
before  her,  if  it  were  not  for  the  shame  which  is  behind 
her.  Gay  and  witty,  and  even  good-humored,  she  is 
inflexible  when  she  is  determined  :  hers  is  a  velvet 
manner  and  an  iron  will.  The  name  of  Fanny  Lear 
may  sound  familiar  to  some  readers  because  it  was 
given  to  an  American  adventuress  in  Russia  by  a  grand- 
ducal  admirer. 

After  'Fanny  Lear'  came  'Froufrou,'  the  lineal  suc- 
cessor of  the  '  Stranger,'  as  the  current  masterpiece  of 
the  lachrymatory  drama.  Nothing  so  tear-compelling 
as  the  final  act  of  '  Froufrou  '  had  been  seen  on  the  stage 
for  half  a  century  or  more.  The  death  of  Froufrou  was 
a  watery  sight,  and  for  any  chance  to  weep  we  are  many 
of  us  grateful.  And  yet  it  was  a  German,  born  in  the 
land  of  Charlotte  and  Werther,  it  was  Heine,  who 
remarked  on  the  oddity  of  praising  the  "dramatic  poet 
who  possesses  the  art  of  drawing  tears,  —  a  talent  which 
he  has  in  common  with  the  meanest  onion."  It  is  note- 
"•"•thy  that  it  was  by  way  of  Germany  that  English 
exerted  its  singular  influence  on  French  come- 


Henri  Meilhac  and  Ludovic  Hal'evy.        261 

dy.  Attracted  by  the  homely  power  of  pieces  like  the 
'  Gamester '  and  '  Jane  Shore/  Diderot  in  France,  and 
Lessing  in  Germany,  attempted  the  trage'die  bourgeoise ; 
but  the  right  of  the  "  tradesmen's  tragedies,"  as  Gold- 
smith called  them,  to  exist  at  all,  was  questioned,  until 
Kotzebue's  pathetic  power  and  theatrical  skill  captured 
nearly  every  stage  in  Europe.  In  France  the  bastard 
offspring  of  English  tragedy  and  German  drama  gave 
birth  to  an  equally  illegitimate  come'die  larmoyante. 
And  so  it  happens  that  while  comedy  in  English  litera- 
ture, resulting  from  the  clash  of  character,  is  always  on 
the  brink  of  farce,  comedy  in  French  literature  may  be 
tinged  with  passion  until  it  almost  turns  to  tragedy.  In 
France  the  word  "  comedy  "  is  elastic,  and  covers  a 
multitude  of  sins  :  it  includes  the  laughing  '  Boule '  and 
the  tearful  '  Froufrou  : '  in  fact,  the  French  Melpomene 
is  a  sort  of  Jeanne  qui  pleure  et  Jeanne  qui  rit. 

So  it  happens  that  '  Froufrou  '  is  a  comedy.  And  in- 
deed the  first  three  acts  are  comedy  of  a  very  high  order, 
full  of  wit,  and  rich  in  character.  I  mentioned  the 
'  Stranger '  a  few  lines  back ;  and  the  contrast  of  the 
two  plays  shows  how  much  lighter  and  more  delicate 
French  art  is.  The  humor  to  be  found  in  the  '  Stranger ' 
is,  to  say  the  least,  Teutonic ;  and  German  humor  is 
like  the  simple  Italian  wines, — it  will  not  stand  export. 
And  in  the  '  Stranger '  there  is  really  no  character,  no 
insight  into  human  nature.  '  Misanthropy  and  Repent- 
ance,' as  Kotzebue  called  his  play  (the  'Stranger'  was 
Sheridan's  title  for  the  English  translation  he  revised 
for  his  own  theatre),  are  loud-sounding  words  when  we 
capitalize  them  ;  but  they  do  not  deceive  us  now :  we 
see  that  the  play  itself  is  mostly  stalking  sententious- 
ness,  mawkishly  overladen  with  gush.  Now,  in  '  Frou 


262  French  Dramatists. 

frou '  there  is  wit  of  the  latest  Parisian  kind,  and  there 
are  characters,  —  people  whom  we  might  meet,  and 
whom  we  may  remember.  Brigard,  for  one,  the  repro- 
bate old  gentleman,  living  even  in  his  old  age  in  that 
Bohemia  which  has  Paris  for  its  capital,  and  dyeing  his 
few  locks  because  he  feels  himself  unworthy  to  wear 
gray  hair,  —  Brigard  is  a  portrait  from  life.  The  Baron 
de  Cambri  is  less  individual ;  and  I  confess  I  cannot 
quite  stomach  a  gentleman  who  is  willing  to  discuss  the 
problem  of  his  wife's  virtue  with  a  chance  adorer.  But 
the  cold  Baroness  herself  is  no  commonplace  person. 
And  Louise,  the  elder  sister  of  Froufrou,  the  one  who 
had  chosen  the  better  part,  and  had  kept  it  by  much 
self-sacrifice,  — she  is  a  true  woman.  Best  (better  even 
than  Brigard)  is  Gilberte,  nicknamed  "  Froufrou  "  from 
the  rustling  of  her  silks  as  she  skips  and  scampers 
airily  around.  Froufrou,  when  all  is  said,  is  a  real  crea- 
tion, a  revelation  of  Parisian  femininity,  a  living  thing, 
breathing  the  breath  of  life,  and  tripping  along  lightly 
on  her  own  little  feet.  Marrying  a  reserved  yet  deeply- 
devoted  husband  because  her  sister  bid  her ;  taking  into 
her  home  that  sister  who  had  sacrificed  her  own  love 
for  the  husband  ;  seeing  this  sister  straighten  the  house- 
hold which  she  in  her  heedless  seeking  for  idle  amuse- 
ment had  not  governed ;  then  beginning  to  feel  herself 
in  danger,  and  aware  of  a  growing  jealousy  —  senseless 
though  it  be  —  of  the  sister  who  has  so  innocently  sup- 
planted her  by  her  hearth  and  even  with  her  child ; 
making  one  effort  to  regain  her  place,  and  failing,  as 
was  inevitable,  —  poor  Froufrou  takes  the  fatal  plunge 
which  will  at  once  and  forever  separate  her  from  what 
was  hers  before.  What  a  fine  scene  is  that  at  the  end 
of  the  third  act,  in  which  Froufrou  has  worked  herself 


Henri  Meilhac  and  Ludovic  Halevy.  263 

almost  to  a  frenzy,  and,  hopeless  in  her  jealousy,  gives 
up  all  to  her  sister,  and  rushes  from  the  house  to  the 
lover  she  scarcely  cares  for !  And  how  admirably  does 
all  that  has  gone  before  lead  up  to  it !  These  first  three 
acts  are  a  wonder  of  constructive  art.  Of  the  rest  of  the 
play  it  is  hard  to  speak  so  highly.  The  change  is  rather 
sudden  from  the  study  of  character  in  the  first  part  to 
the  demand  in  the  last,  that  if  you  have  tears,  you 
must  prepare  to  shed  them  now.  The  brightness  is 
quenched  in  gloom  and  despair.  Of  a  verity,  frivolity 
may  be  fatal,  and  death  may  follow  a  liking  for  private 
theatricals  and  the  other  empty  amusements  of  fashion  ; 
but  is  it  worth  while  to  break  a  butterfly  on  the  wheel, 
and  to  put  a  humming-bird  to  the  question  ?  To  say 
what  fate  shall  be  meted  out  to  the  woman  taken  in 
adultery  is  always  a  hard  task  for  a  dramatist.  Here 
the  erring  and  erratic  heroine  comes  home  to  be  for- 
given, to  kiss  the  child  she  abandoned,  and  to  die,  like 
Pope's  Narcissa,  to  the  very  end  thinking  of  fine  linen 
and  a  change  of  raiment ;  and  so,  after  the  fresh  and 
unforced  painting  of  modern  Parisian  life,  we  have  a 
finish  full  of  conventional  pathos.  Well,  death  redeems 
all ;  and,  as  Pascal  says,  "  the  last  act  is  always  tragedy, 
whatever  fine  comedy  there  may  have  been  in  the  rest 
of  life.  We  must  all  die  alone." 


CHAPTER  XI. 

M.  EMILE  ZOLA  AND  THE  PRESENT  TENDENCIES  OF 
THE  FRENCH  DRAMA. 

IN  his  admirable  essay  on  the  genius  of  Calderon, 
Archbishop  Trench  has  pointed  out  that  thrice,  and 
thrice  only,  has  there  been  a  really  great  and  popular 
drama,  and  that  "  the  conditions  of  a  people  which 
make  a  grand  outburst  of  the  drama  possible  make  it 
also  inevitable  that  this  will  utter  itself,  not  by  a  single 
voice,  but  by  many."  In  a  note,  the  archbishop  shows 
us  that  each  of  these  dramatic  outbursts  has  been  com- 
prised in  the  space  of  a  century,  or  but  little  more  : 
thus  ^Eschylus  was  born  B.C.  525,  and  Euripides  died 
B.C.  406 ;  Lope  de  Vega  was  born  in  1562,  and  Calderon 
died  in  1681  :  and  Marlowe  was  born  in  1565,  and  Shir- 
ley died  in  1666.  Now,  although  in  France  there  has 
been  no  grand  outburst  of  the  drama  as  the  one  voice 
through  which  the  nation  was  uttering  itself,  and  spake 
to  foreign  countries  and  posterity,  there  have  been  two 
occasions,  when,  beyond  all  cavil,  the  drama  was  the 
first  and  most  important  form  of  literature.  The  earlier 
and  by  far  the  greater  of  these  two  epochs,  when  the 
supremacy  of  the  drama  in  French  literature  is  indis- 
putable, was  the  space  of  a  little  less  than  a  hundred 
years,  which  elapsed  between  the  birth  of  Corneille  in 
1606,  and  the  death  of  Racine  in  1699,  —  a  scant  cen- 
tury, which  saw  the  making  of  all  the  masterpieces  of 
Molidre,  and  which  displays  a  dramatic  literature  in- 
ferior only  to  that  of  Greece  and  of  England,  and  it 
264 


M.  Emile  Zola.  265 

may  be,  of  Spain.  The  second  and  secondary  occasion 
when  the  drama  became  the  most  important  form  in 
French  literature  is  in  our  own  time,  in  the  half-century 
extending  from  1830  to  1880.  Just  what  will  be  the 
future  estimate  of  this  drama,  we  cannot  now  do  more 
than  guess  at,  nor  what  it  is  to  become  in  the  immediate 
future.  But  it  is  possible  to  recapitulate  briefly  the 
course  of  the  drama  in  France,  from  the  beginning  of 
this  century,  and  to  see  whether  we  cannot  discover  in 
what  direction  lie  its  present  tendencies. 

"The  theatre  is,  of  all  the  countries  of  the  world,  the 
one  most  subject  to  revolutions,"  says  M.  Edmond 
About :  "  it  renews  itself  and  gets  younger  every  day, 
like  the  society  of  which  it  is  the  image.  .  .  .  The  stage 
is  a  magnifying  mirror,  in  which  are  reflected  the  pas- 
sions, the  vices,  the  follies,  of  each  epoch.  Now,  the 
vices  of  yesterday  are  no  longer  those  of  to-day :  fash- 
ion governs  passion,  and  we  change  our  follies  as  we 
do  our  hats.  Moliere  did  not  know  the  stockbroker: 
we  have  lost  the  courtier.  The  shopkeeper  turned 
gentleman  is  played  out ;  but  we  have  the  gentleman 
turned  shopkeeper,  selling  wine  and  flour,  and  putting 
the  family  arms  on  his  labels.  We  must  not  be  too 
greatly  astonished,  if,  after  thirty  or  forty  years,  plays, 
like  women,  begin  to  age, — excepting  only  a  few  mas- 
terpieces, whose  style  preserves  them.  We  may  say  of 
a  comedy,  as  of  a  duchess,  that  she  was  beautiful  in 
1720.  We  may  say  of  a  drama,  what  the  Spaniards  say 
of  a  soldier,  '  He  was  brave  such-and-such  a  day.' ' 

French  drama  has  had  two  such  revolutions  in  this 
century :  it  has  got  younger  twice ;  and  even  now  it 
may  be  on  the  edge  of  a  third  rejuvenescence.  At  the 
opening  of  the  century,  the  theatre  in  France  was  op 


266  French  Dramatists. 

pressed  by  the  rigidity  of  the  imperial  rule,  fettered  by 
a  blind  obedience  to  the  so-called  unities,  and  shackled 
by  a  superstitious  regard  for  dignity  and  propriety. 
After  Beaumarchais  abandoned  the  stage,  the  drama 
was  lifeless,  except  in  the  minor  theatres,  where  melo- 
dramas of  the  German  type  drew  throngs.  In  1817 
Eugene  Scribe  began  to  renovate  the  national  vaude- 
ville, and  in  his  hands  it  gained  value  and  variety.  In 
1827  a  young  French  poet,  Victor  Hugo,  published  a 
play  called  '  Cromwell,'  to  which  he  prefixed  a  declara- 
tion of  dramatic  principles ;  and  the  revolt  of  the  Ro- 
manticists against  the  Classicists  was  proclaimed.  In 
1829  '  Henri  III.,'  a  drama  by  a  young  quadroon  called 
Alexandre  Dumas,  took  everybody  by  surprise.  The 
next  year  was  acted  Victor  Hugo's  'Hernani ;'  and,  as 
Senor  Castelar  puts  it  picturesquely,  it  "was  wondered 
at  like  a  comet,  and  announced  in  the  heavens  a  war 
in  the  realm  of  poetry."  In  their  revolt  against  the 
formality  and  severity  of  the  old  school,  the  Romanti- 
cists went  to  the  other  extreme.  They  slighted  accu- 
racy and  even  common  sense :  they  sought  to  astound 
and  to  stupefy  the  spectator  into  silent  acquiescence. 
Not  a  few  of  the  most  brilliant  of  French  dramas  saw 
the  light  of  the  lamps  at  this  time.  Historical  plays 
especially  found  favor  in  the  eyes  of  French  theatre- 
goers, and  a  fantastic  semblance  of  history  filled  the 
stage.  And  so,  at  last,  a  movement  which  promised 
much  accomplished  little.  The  rubbish  of  Classicism 
was  cleared  away,  and  that  was  all.  "The  great  point," 
said  Goethe,  "  is  not  to  pull  down,  but  to  build  up ;  and 
in  this  humanity  finds  pure  joy."  The  Romanticists 
pulled  down,  but  the  power  of  united  action  in  build- 
ing up  failed  them.  A  few  fine  works  by  the  great 


M.  Emile  Zola.  267 

writers  who  led  the  movement  still  survive,  but  toward 
the  foundation  of  a  distinct  and  enduring  school  Ro- 
manticism did  little  or  nothing.  It  was  Maurice  de 
Guerin  who  characterized  Romanticism  as  "  that  youth- 
ful literature  which  has  put  forth  all  its  blossom  prema- 
turely, and  has  left  itself  a  helpless  prey  to  the  return- 
ing frost." 

It  is  important  to  remember  that  the  romantic  drama 
in  France,  although  seemingly  a  fresh  creation,  was  in 
great  measure  an  evolution  from  the  melodrama  of  the 
minor  theatres.  Before  Hugo  and  Dumas  were  Victor 
Ducange  and  Pixerecourt ;  and  '  Henri  III.'  and  '  Her- 
nani,'  although  immensely  superior  to  'Thirty  Years 
of  a  Gambler's  Life,'  differed  from  it  in  degree  rather 
than  in  kind.  The  poets  of  the  Romanticist  movement 
robed  in  royal  verse  plots  not  greatly  above  those  which 
the  humbler  playwright  clothed  in  common  prose. 
Even  during  the  height  of  the  movement,  Bouchardy 
drew  the  multitude  to  see  '  Lazare  le  Pcitre.'  When  the 
poets  gave  up  the  stage,  successors  to  Ducange  and 
Pixe"recourt  and  Bouchardy  were  not  wanting.  M. 
Dennery  and  his  fellows  began  the  long  list  of  modern 
melodramas,  of  which  the  best  specimens  are  'Don 
Cesar  de  Bazan '  (suggested  by  a  scene  or  two  of 
Hugo's  '  Ruy  Bias ')  and  the  '  Two  Orphans.'  Lack- 
ing in  elevation,  their  plays  were  constructed  with 
the  utmost  technical  skill.  Nothing  was  neglected  to 
heighten  the  effect  on  the  play-goer,  and  every  thing 
was  sacrificed  to  it. 

In  this  making  of  melodramas,  the  influence  of  the 
Romanticists  was  very  obvious,  and  indeed  unmis- 
takable. There  was  one  form  of  drama  on  which  the 
movement  led  by  Hugo  and  Dumas  had  had  no  effect 


268  French  Dramatists. 

whatever.  After  having  made  over  the  vaudeville  to  his 
own  satisfaction,  Eugene  Scribe  invented  the  come'die- 
vaudeville ;  and  from  this  to  comedy  in  three  or  five 
acts  was  but  a  step.  To  the  writing  of  comedy,  Scribe 
brought  the  unexampled  skill  acquired  in  the  writing  of 
a  hundred  minor  plays.  His  knowledge  of  the  stage, 
and  of  what  could  be  done  there,  and  of  how  to  do  it, 
has  never  been  equalled,  and  probably  never  will  be. 
The  present  world-wide  acceptance  of  French  drama  is 
owing  to  the  perfection  of  Scribe's  methods,  —  methods 
which  he  used  in  vaudeville  and  comedy,  and  which 
M.  Dennery  and  his  associates  imitated  in  the  making 
of  melodramas.  What  Scribe  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
melodramatic  playwrights  on  the  other,  devoted  them- 
selves to,  was  the  construction  of  a  self-acting  plot ;  and, 
when  once  constructed,  this  plot  could  be  dressed  up 
just  as  well  in  English,  or  German,  or  Icelandic,  as  in 
the  original  French.  But  after  we  have  once  admired 
the  pretty  trickeries  of  mere  ingenuity,  we  tire  of  them 
and  crave  something  better,  something  more  substantial. 
The  melodramatists  and  the  Romanticists  still  in  active 
practice  met  this  demand  by  extravagance  and  by  the 
accumulation  of  horrors.  Time  was  ripe  for  another 
transformation. 

In  1843,  perhaps  fifteen  years  after  the  beginning  of 
the  Romantic  movement,  a  young  poet  named  Ponsard 
brought  out  a  tragedy  called  '  Lucrece,'  and  was  at  once 
hailed  as  the  founder  of  a  new  school,  —  the  School  of 
Common  Sense,  a  compromise,  as  it  were,  between  the 
coldness  of  Classicism  and  the  fire  of  Romanticism.  It 
is  useless  to  be  hailed  as  the  founder  of  a  school,  if  you 
have  no  scholars ;  and  Ponsard  had  none.  It  is  true 
that  when  a  friend  of  his  produced  a  delightful  little 


M.  Emile  Zola.  269 

poetic  comedy  of  antique  life,  its  author,  M.  fimile 
Augier,  was  declared  to  be  of  the  School  of  Common 
Sense.  But  M.  Augier  never  set  himself  down  as  a 
disciple  of  Ponsard's ;  and,  when  the  real  transformation 
of  the  drama  did  come  at  last,  it  was  seen,  not  only  that 
M.  Augier  did  not  belong  to  the  School  of  Common 
Sense,  but  that  the  school  itself  had  never  had  any 
substantial  existence.  It  sprang  up  quickly ;  but  it  had 
no  root,  and  it  withered  away  as  quickly.  Further: 
when  the  new  movement  began  it  was  not  poetic,  but 
prosaic.  Nothing  more  clearly  declares  that  the  pres- 
ent is  not  a  time  for  a  great  outburst  of  the  drama  than 
the  fact  that  there  is  nowadays  an  almost  universal 
divorce  between  the  poet  and  the  playwright.  In  the 
three  great  epochs  of  Greece,  Spain,  and  England,  and 
even  in  the  French  literature  under  Louis  XIV.,  the 
dramatist  was  perforce  a  poet.  Now,  not  only  in 
France,  but  everywhere,  the  playwright  is  very  rarely  a 
poet,  and  the  stage  is  correspondingly  prosaic.  Even 
Hugo  is  not  a  true  dramatic  poet :  he  is  a  curious  com- 
bination of  a  playwright  and  a  lyric  poet.  Alfred  de 
Musset  was  a  poet  first,  and  a  dramatist  by  accident 
only.  Ponsard  was  a  respectable  poet ;  and  M.  fimile 
Augier  can  write  fine  verse ;  but  the  mass  of  contem- 
porary French  drama  has  but  little  touch  of  poetry. 
Now  and  again  a  comedy  in  verse,  or  an  old-fashioned 
tragedy  in  five  acts,  gets  before  the  footlights ;  but, 
although  the  form  is  relished  by  the  inner  circle  of 
literary  epicures,  it  is  out  of  fashion  with  the  throng 
which  alone  can  fill  a  theatre.  Beautiful  as  some  of 
these  poetic  plays  are,  —  and  I  know  nothing  more  beau- 
tiful in  the  modern  drama  than  M.  Theodore  de  Ban- 
ville's  '  Gringoire '  (which,  although  written  in  prose,  is 


270  French  Dramatists. 

instinct  with  the  truest  poetry),  or  than  M.  Francois 
CoppeVs  'Luthier  de  Cr6mone,'  both  written  for  the 
acting  of  that  admirable  comedian,  M.  Coquelin  of  the 
Com&He-Fran^aise, — they  remain  individual  efforts 
only,  and  are  insufficient  in  either  number  or  impor- 
tance to  be  considered  as  a  school.  The  accidental  suc- 
cess of  M.  Henri  de  Bornier's  declamatory  tragedy,  the 
'  Fille  de  Roland/  is  not  evidence  of  a  popular  revival 
of  interest  in  an  obsolete  formula :  it  is  to  be  explained 
easily  enough,  as  the  chance  result  of  the  appropriate- 
ness of  the  patriotic  speeches,  in  which  the  piece 
abounds,  to  the  feelings  of  the  French  at  the  time  it 
was  acted. 

About  the  middle  of  the  century,  there  was  a  sharp 
re-action  against  the  violence  of  the  melodramatists,  and 
against  the  childishness  of  the  machine-made  plays, 
against  M.  Dennery  and  his  fellows,  and  against  Scribe. 
Fact  began  to  take  the  place  of  fantasy.  Dramatists 
invented  less,  and  observed  more.  A  photograph  of 
modern  life  was  offered  in  place  of  a  pretentious  his- 
torical painting,  the  maker  of  which  had  relied  on  his 
fancy  for  all  details.  Romanticism  was  followed  by 
Realism.  Hugo  and  Alexandre  Dumas  were  succeeded 
by  M.  fimile  Augier  and  M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fils ; 
just  as,  in  pictorial  art,  the  large  manner  of  Decamps 
and  Delacroix  gave  way  to  the  genre  painting  of  MM. 
Meissonier  and  Gerdme.  The  dramatist  sought  to  be 
probable,  to  give  an  exact  transcript  of  life  as  he  saw 
it  around  him,  to  do  for  the  stage  what  Balzac  was 
doing  for  prose  fiction.  In  1852  M.  Dumas  fils  brought 
out  his  'Dame  aux  Camelias,'  and  two  or  three  years 
later  began  the  series  of  social  studies  which  includes 
the  'Demi-Monde,'  the  'Fils  Naturel,1  and  'M.  Al- 


M.  Emile  Zola.  271 

phonse.'  M.  Iimile  Augier,  whose  hand  had  hitherto 
hesitated,  saw  at  once  where  his  real  strength  lay,  and, 
abandoning  verse,  gave  us  the  stirring  and  sturdy  satires 
of  which  the  '  Fils  de  Giboyer '  is  the  best,  and  the  long 
list  of  high  and  keen  comedies,  chief  among  which  is 
the  'Gendre  de  M.  Poirier.'  In  the  footsteps  of  M. 
Dumas  and  M.  Augier  have  walked  Theodore  Barriere, 
M.  Victorien  Sardou,  and  MM.  Meilhac  and  Halevy. 
The  effect  of  their  example  was  felt  even  by  the  melo- 
dramatists  who  left  the  middle  ages  and  sought  for 
subjects  and  excitement  in  the  crimes  of  the  present. 

When  the  '  Dame  aux  Came"lias '  was  first  acted, 
The"ophile  Gautier  hailed  it  as  a  protest  against  the 
cheap  complications  of  the  Scribe  school,  and  the  dark, 
deep  plots  of  the  Dennery  melodramatists.  "What 
does  most  honor  to  the  author,"  he  wrote,  "is  that 
there  is  not  the  slightest  intrigue,  surprise,  or  compli- 
cation in  all  these  five  acts,  despite  their  intense  inter- 
est." Any  one  who  glances  through  the  volumes  of 
Theophile  Gautier's  collected  dramatic  criticisms  can- 
not but  note  how  often  he  flings  out  against  the  machine- 
made  plays  of  his  day,  in  which  one  part  fitted  so  per- 
fectly into  another,  that  there  was  no  room  for  any  life 
or  nature,  and  all  that  the  spectator  was  called  upon  to 
admire  was  a  sort  of  Chinese-puzzle  ingenuity.  Scribe's 
formula,  for  instance,  was  to  take  a  simple  situation,  to 
present  it  frankly,  and  then  to  carry  it  out  to  a  care- 
fully-considered conclusion  by  means  of  a  series  of 
amusing  scenes,  which,  while  showing  various  phases 
of  the  idea,  seemed  to  delay  the  determined  end,  while 
in  reality  they  were  skilfully  made  to  serve  in  its  prepa- 
ration. There  was,  in  short,  an  essential  unity  of  plot, 
carried  on  by  a  well-balanced  and  intricately-complicated 


272  French  Dramatists. 

intrigue,  in  the  course  of  which  poor  human  nature 
was  wofully  twisted  to  suit  the  exigencies  of  an  end 
arbitrarily  agreed  on.  This  principle  of  construction 
is  right  enough,  if  not  pushed  to  extremes ;  but  the 
temptation  to  which  Scribe  and  his  disciples  succumbed 
was  to  invent  difficulties  from  mere  delight  in  their  own 
dexterity  in  surmounting  them.  With  the  coming  of 
Realism,  and  the  consequent  demand  for  a  closer  re- 
semblance to  actual  existence,  the  machine-made  play 
went  out  of  fashion.  Unfortunately,  the  pendulum 
swung  as  far  one  way  as  it  had  the  other,  and  plays  are 
now  as  ill  made  as  they  were  then  too  well  made.  I 
have  read  somewhere,  that  Scribe  wondered  why  his 
later  plays  did  not  hit  the  popular  taste,  declaring  that 
his  pieces  were  as  well  made  as  ever.  No  doubt ;  but 
the  French  play-goer  had  ceased  to  care  for  a  well-made 
piece,  or  rather,  he  wanted  something  more  in  a  piece 
than  clever  joinery.  Exactly  the  same  change  has  taken 
place  in  the  making  of  French  plays  within  a  quarter 
of  a  century  which  has  taken  place  in  the  making  of 
English  novels  within  half  a  century.  As  Mr.  Richard 
Grant  White  reminded  us  a  year  ago,  the  modern  novel 
—  Mr.  Anthony  Trollope's,  for  instance  —  slights  plot, 
and  is  slovenly  in  structure  when  we  compare  it  with 
one  of  Scott's,  in  which  we  cannot  but  be  struck  by 
the  neatness  of  the  workmanship  and  the  dexterity 
with  which  the  story  is  shaped.  In  France,  Scribe  has 
gone  out  of  fashion,  and  his  formula  with  him.  Just  as 
Gautier  protested  against  the  well-made  play,  so  now 
M.  Francisque  Sarcey  has  to  protest  constantly  against 
the  neglect  of  constructive  principles  which  character- 
izes nearly  all  the  French  drama  of  our  day. 

Even  the  farces  and  comic  dramas,  which  in  Scribe's 


M.  Emile  Zola.  273 

hand  were  as  carefully  finished  as  plays  of  more  im- 
portance, now  rely  on  the  wit  of  their  dialogue  and 
the  jests  liberally  sprinkled  through  them,  and  only 
a  little  on  the  humor  of  the  situation.  Instead  of  a 
comic  plot,  which  could  be  used  in  any  language,  we 
have  only  an  anecdote  in  dialogue,  purely  Parisian  in 
its  abundant  allusions,  and  full  of  a  local  wit  which  loses 
its  color  ten  miles  from  the  capital.  Many  of  the  comic 
plays  of  M.  Gondinet  and  of  MM.  Meilhac  and  Hal6vy, 
delightful  as  they  are  to  those  who  can  appreciate  their 
Parisianism,  do  not  bear  exportation  :  they  are  like  the 
fairies  who  cannot  cross  running  water.  The  pieces  of 
inferior  artists  are  indeed  articles  de  Paris:  they  are 
like  the  cheap  French  bronzes,  —  glittering  and  hollow 
and  brassy,  and  they  do  not  wear  well.  Even  in  more 
important  comedies  the  same  defect  is  to  be  detected. 
Clever  as  are  the  later  comedies  of  M.  Gondinet, — for 
instance,  the  charming  play  called  the  '  Grands  Enfants,' 
—  we  find  in  them  no  unity  of  plot,  no  sequence  of 
situations,  scarcely,  indeed,  any  situations  at  all :  in- 
stead, we  have  a  pell-mell  medley  of  pictures  of  differ- 
ent phases  of  the  fundamental  idea,  huddling  one  after 
another  with  no  apparent  order,  and  lit  up  by  a  rapid 
running  fire  of  very  good  jokes.  A  play  of  this  kind, 
pleasant  as  it  may  be,  presents  no  unity  of  impression, 
and  fades  out  of  memory  far  more  easily  than  a  play 
of  inferior  material  so  constructed  that  there  is  some- 
thing salient  for  the  mind  to  cling  to.  As  I  said,  M. 
Gondinet  is  not  alone  in  this  failing :  he  serves  how- 
ever as  an  admirable  example,  for  no  play  of  his  has 
ever  been  adapted  for  the  American  stage,  no  doubt,  be- 
cause of  this  very  deficiency. 

Romanticism  dates  from   1827;  Realism,  from  1852. 


274  French  Dramatists. 

Another  quarter  of  a  century  has  elapsed,  and  what  new 
force  is  now  making  itself  felt  on  the  French  stage  in 
the  stead  of  the  Realism  which  has  spent  itself  ?  If  we 
pay  attention  only  to  the  noise  a  new  doctrine  and  its 
disciples  are  wont  to  make,  there  is  no  need  of  hesita- 
tion :  the  coming  power  is  Naturalism,  and  M.  Zola  is 
its  prophet.  M.  Iimile  Zola  is  a  robust  young  man  who 
has  roughly  shouldered  his  way  into  literature.  In  this 
country  he  has  rather  an  unsavory  reputation,  from  the 
dirt  which  encumbers  the  corners  of  his  ignoble  but 
powerful  novels.  Dirt  has  been  defined  to  be  matter 
in  the  wrong  place ;  and  in  Zola's  novels  it  is  in  the 
wrong  place,  for  it  hides  their  strength,  and  keeps  many 
men  from  reading  them,  who  would  keenly  appreciate 
their  force,  were  it  not  for  their  indecency.  Although 
indecent,  they  are  not  immoral,  any  more  than  a  clinic 
or  a  dissection  is  immoral ;  and  it  is  as  the  operator  at 
a  clinic  that  M.  Zola  poses.  The  system  of  an  artist 
always  takes  color  from  his  personality  :  Naturalism  is 
no  exception ;  it  has  been  warped  to  fit  the  nature  of 
M.  Zola.  So  it  is  well  first  to  consider  what  manner 
of  man  he  is,  before  discussing  his  literary  code. 

The  first  impression  we  get  from  his  works  is  one  of 
main  strength,  often  perversely  misapplied,  and  never 
corrected  by  good  taste.  M.  Zola  seems  to  delight  in 
describing  the  unspeakable.  In  his  eye  every  thing  is 
unclean,  sordid,  and  despicable.  He  has  a  gloomy  dis- 
satisfaction with  life,  and  is,  indeed,  as  disgusted  with 
it  as  most  readers  are  with  the  degradation  laid  bare  in 
his  novels :  Schopenhauer  himself  could  scarcely  be 
more  pessimistic.  This  explains  his  dislike  of  sympa- 
thetic characters  :  he  simply  does  not  believe  in  them  ; 
in  his  eyes,  Colonel  Newcome  would  be  an  idiot  or  an 


M.  Emile  Zola.  275 

impossibility.  To  him  there  are  no  good  men,  though 
some  men  are  not  so  bad  as  others.  Health  is  as  scarce 
as  virtue :  so  he  studies  the  diseases  of  his  characters, 
and  details  their  sufferings.  It  is  hard  for  him  to  meet 
the  accusation  that  the  Naturalists  are  artists  who  re- 
fuse to  paint  your  portrait  unless  you  are  pitted  by  the 
small-pox.  M.  Zola  has  none  of  the  saving  grace  of 
humor.  In  fact,  he  has  a  most  un-French  lack  of  esprit 
and  a  corresponding  hatred  of  it.  His  chance  attempts 
at  jocoseness  are  painful :  when  he  trees  a  poor  little 
joke  he  brings  it  down  mercilessly,  and  nails  up  its 
skin  as  a  warning.  No  writer  ever  stood  more  in  need 
of  the  sense  of  humor  than  M.  Zola;  and  he  has  it  not. 
It  takes  a  strong  stomach  to  read  through  certain  of 
his  books  without  qualms,  and  a  hearty  laugh  would  do 
much  toward  clearing  the  atmosphere  of  its  foulness. 
His  grossness  may  be  matched  in  Rabelais  perhaps ; 
but  M.  Zola's  work  is  without  the  broad  breeze  of  humor 
which  blows  across  the  pages  of  Rabelais,  setting  the 
reader  in  such  a  gale  of  laughter  that  he  has  no  need 
to  hold  his  nose.  He  is  as  devoid  of  humor  as  a  graven 
image.  His  substitute  for  it  is  a  chill  and  bitter  irony, 
with  which  he  is  not  scantily  supplied. 

Turning  from  the  man  to  the  system,  we  may  define 
Naturalism  as  the  application  to  novels  and  plays  of 
the  principles  of  what,  in  history  and  criticism,  is  known 
as  the  "historical  method."  It  is  easy  to  trace  the 
growth  of  this  idea  to  its  present  maturity  as  we  look 
back  through  M.  Zola's  writings.  Fifteen  years  ago  he 
declared,  "  I  must  find  a  man  in  every  work,  or  it  leaves 
me  cold.  I  frankly  sacrifice  humanity  to  the  artist.  If 
I  were  to  formulate  my  definition  of  a  work  of  art,  it 
would  be,  '  A  work  of  art  is  a  corner  of  creation  seen 


276  French  Dramatists. 

through  a  temperament.'  And  what  matters  to  me  all 
else  ?  I  am  an  artist,  and  I  give  you  my  flesh  and  my 
blood,  my  heart  and  my  thought.  .  .  .  Have  you,  then, 
not  understood  that  art  is  the  free  expression  of  a 
heart  and  of  an  intelligence,  and  that  it  is  the  greater 
the  more  personal  it  is  ? "  A  year  later  the  idea  had 
grown  :  "  I  am  for  no  school,  because  I  am  for  human 
truth,  which  excludes  all  sects  and  all  system.  The 
word  art  displeases  me  :  it  contains  I  do  not  know  what 
ideas  of  necessary  arrangement,  of  absolute  ideal.  To 
make  art  (faire  de  I'arf),  is  it  not  to  make  something 
which  is  outside  of  man  and  of  nature  ?  I  wish  that 
you  should  make  life:  I  wish  that  you  should  be  alive, 
that  you  should  create  afresh,  outside  of  all  things, 
according  to  your  own  eyes  and  your  own  tempera- 
ment. What  I  seek  first  of  all  in  a  picture  is  a  man, 
and  not  a  picture." 

A  platform  like  this  needed  but  one  more  plank  to  let 
M.  Zola  take  a  purely  scientific  view  of  literature, 
excluding  art  utterly.  This  plank  was  soon  added.  M. 
Zola's  advanced  doctrine  has  been  most  succinctly  for- 
mulated in  his  essay  on  'Naturalism  in  the  Theatre.' 
He  defines  Naturalism  as  "  the  return  to  nature :  it  is 
what  scientific  men  did  when  they  first  thought  of 
beginning  with  the  study  of  bodies  and  phenomena,  of 
basing  themselves  on  experience,  of  working  by  analy- 
sis. Naturalism  in  literature  is  also  the  return  to 
nature  and  to  man,  direct  observation,  exact  anatomy, 
the  frank  acceptance  and  depicting  of  the  thing  as  it 
is."  M.  Zola  claims  Homer  as  a  Naturalist,  which  is 
rather  damaging  to  the  assertion  that  Naturalism  is  a 
new  thing.  From  Homer  it  is  a  far  cry  to  Diderot ; 
but  M.  Zola  clears  the  distance  at  a  single  stride. 


X 

M.  Emile  Zola.  277 

Diderot,  as  we  all  know,  begat  Balzac ;  and  Stendhal 
and  Balzac  bring  us  down  to  Flaubert,  and  to  the  broth- 
ers de  Goncourt,  and  to  M.  Zola  himself.  In  its  per- 
fected form  as  it  is  to  be  in  the  future, — for  perhaps 
all  present  Naturalists  are  too  tainted  with  the  conven- 
tionalities of  contemporary  art  ever  to  rise  to  the  height 
which  their  followers  may  easily  attain,  —  the  Natural- 
istic novel  or  drama  is  to  be  "simply  an  inquest  on 
nature,  beings,  and  things ; "  and  its  interest  is  to  be 
sought  "no  longer  in  the  ingenuity  of  a  fable  well 
invented  and  developed  according  to  certain  rules. 
Imagination  is  no  longer  needed,  plot  is  of  little  conse- 
quence." What  the  coming  Naturalist  must  stand  and 
deliver  is  facts,  documents  on  humanity.  "  Instead  of 
imagining  an  adventure,  complicating  it,  preparing 
stage  surprises,  which  from  scene  to  scene  will  bring  it 
to  a  final  conclusion,  one  simply  takes  from  life  the 
history  of  a  being,  or  of  a  group  of  beings,  whose  acts 
one  faithfully  registers."  The  work  has  no  other  merit 
than  "exact  observation,  the  penetration  more  or  less 
profound  of  the  analysis,  the  logical  linking  of  events." 
In  short,  the  theatre  is  to  be  made  "the  study  and 
painting  of  life,"  and  not  "a  mere  amusement  of  the 
intellect,  an  art  of  balance  and  symmetry,  ruled  accord- 
ing to  a  certain  code." 

Like  most  reformers,  M.  Zola  breaks  too  many 
images :  his  zeal  runs  away  with  him.  The  drama, 
like  all  other  arts,  exists  only  through  certain  conven- 
tions which  are  absolutely  necessary  to  its  existence. 
Other  conventions  there  are,  not  absolutely  necessary, 
and  changing  from  time  to  time :  these  M.  Zola  may 
attack  with  impunity  and  credit ;  but  all  struggle 
against  the  former  is  futile.  On  the  stage  the  absolute 


278  French  Dramatists. 

reproduction  of  nature  is  neither  possible  nor  desirable. 
There  are  scores  of  every-day  situations  which  cannot 
be  shown  in  the  theatre.  As  M.  Dumas  reminded  us 
in  his  preface  to  the  '  fitrangere '  (intended  as  an 
answer  to  M.  Zola's  essay),  no  matter  how  closely  we 
seek  to  copy  nature,  there  is  always  a  point  at  which 
exact  imitation  must  stop,  and  convention  take  its  place. 
"An  artist,"  says  M.  Dumas  concisely  and  conclusively, 
"a  true  artist,  has  a  higher  and  more  difficult  mission 
than  the  mere  reproduction  of  what  is  :  he  has  to  dis- 
cover and  to  reveal  to  us  that  which  we  do  not  see  in 
things  we  look  at  every  day,  —  that  which  he  alone  has 
the  faculty  of  perceiving  in  what  is  apparently  patent 
to  all  of  us."  No  less  apt  is  Lowell's  remark,  that 
Wordsworth,  who  also  proclaimed  a  new  gospel  in  lite- 
rature, sometimes  confounded  fact,  which  chokes  the 
Muse,  with  truth,  which  is  the  breath  of  her  nostrils. 

Then,  again,  the  inborn  eagerness  we  all  have  for 
story-telling,  is  this  to  be  satisfied  by  coldly-scientific 
statements  of  ascertained  facts  ?  Bare  facts  are  poor 
food  for  the  fancy.  The  imagination  which  stirs  us 
while  yet  in  the  cradle  is  not  to  be  shut  out  at  M.  Zola's 
bidding:  indeed,  he  cannot  even  shut  it  out  of  his  own 
work.  When  we  examine  his  novels,  we  find  his  prac- 
tice better  than  his  precepts.  He  is  often  an  artist  in 
spite  of  himself,  as  in  the  'Faute  de  l'Abb6  Mouret,' 
for  instance;  and  again  he  falls  below  his  doctrine  to 
the  other  extreme,  and  gives  us  in  '  Nana '  a  tale  as 
conventional  and  cheap  as  it  is  dull  and  obscene.  It  is 
but  fair  to  add,  that  these  two  stories  are  units  in  a 
series  to  contain  twenty  tales,  and  called  collectively 
the  '  Rougon-Macquart,  Natural  and  Social  History  of 
a  Family  under  the  Second  Empire,'  laid  out  on  strictly 


M.  Emile  Zola.  279 

scientific  lines,  and  having  for  its  backbone  the  princi- 
ple of  heredity.  To  prove  how  the  character  of  each 
child  is  the  result  of  its  parentage,  he  prefixed  to  one  of 
his  novels  a  family  tree  of  his  double  set  of  personages. 
It  might  surprise  M.  Zola  to  be  told  that  Lowell  has 
shown  us  how  Shakspere  had  applied  the  principle  of 
heredity,  making  no  parade  about  it,  and  that  in  Hamlet 
we  see  the  blending  of  the  characteristics  of  the  Queen 
and  the  Ghost.  This  identity  of  view  between  Shak- 
spere and  himself  may  not  interest  M.  Zola ;  for  it 
happens  that  he  has  a  poor  opinion  of  Hamlet,  prefer- 
ring his  own  Coupeau,  the  drunkard,  whose  death  from 
delirium-tremens  gives  relief  to  his  novel  the  'Assom- 
moir  '  and  to  the  play  taken  from  it.  In  the  preface  to 
this  play  M.  Zola  says,  "  I  laugh  at  Hamlet  (je  me 
moque  parfaitement  d' Hamlet],  who  no  longer  comes 
within  my  ken,  who  remains  an  enigma,  a  subject  for 
dissertations  ;  while  I  am  ardently  interested  at  the  sight 
of  Coupeau,  whom  I  can  hold  fast,  and  on  whom  I  can 
try  all  sorts  of  interesting  experiments." 

A  proof  of  the  importance  of  the  drama  in  France 
nowadays,  and  of  the  fact  that  there,  at  least,  it  is  still 
the  highest  form  of  literature,  can  be  found  in  M.  Zola's 
anxiety  for  the  success  of  his  principles  on  the  stage. 
The  Naturalists  of  to-day,  like  the  Romanticists  of  half 
a  century  ago,  look  upon  the  theatre  as  the  final  battle- 
ground on  which  their  theories  must  conquer  or  perish. 
With  those  who  have  possession  of  the  stage  now,  M. 
Zola  is  thoroughly  dissatisfied.  He  brushes  Hugo  aside 
impatiently,  and  sweeps  away  Scribe.  The  three  chief 
Realists  of  the  contemporary  drama  fare  a  little  better 
at  his  hands.  M.  Sardou  is  a  prestidigitator  who  plays 
with  marionettes,  and  his  "  human  documents "  are 


280  French  Dramatists. 

commonplace  and  second-hand.  M.  Dumas  is  a  Natu- 
ralist at  times,  and  his  "  human  documents  "  are  fresher ; 
but  he  is  too  witty  and  too  clever,  and  he  "  uses  truth 
as  a  spring-board  to  jump  into  space,"  —  to  repeat  a 
quotation  I  have  made  before.  M.  Augier  is  nearly 
always  a  Naturalist ;  but  his  plays  are  too  well  made, 
and  some  of  his  characters  are  too  good  to  live. 

Just  what  kind  of  a  play  M.  Zola  wants,  it  would  be 
hard  to  say.  No  play  yet  acted  exactly  meets  his 
views.  Three  times  he  has  himself  come  forward  as 
a  dramatist,  and  the  pieces  have  been  damned  out  of 
hand.  A  dramatization  of  his  novel,  the  '  Assommoir,' 
made  by  two  hack  playwrights,  was  successful ;  but 
M.  Zola  distinctly  disavowed  its  paternity.  A  drama- 
tization of  '  Nana,'  also  successful,  was  made  by  one 
of  these  playwrights,  apparently  aided  by  M.  Zola 
himself;  but  neither  of  these  plays  has  any  literary 
value.  No  one  of  his  own  three  plays  fits  into  his 
formula.  Two  of  them  are  rough  and  coarse  farces, 
suggested,  one  by  Ben  Jonson's  '  Volpone,'  the  other  by 
one  of  Balzac's  '  Contes  Drdlatiques.'  M.  Zola's  hand 
is  too  heavy  for  fun,  even  of  the  lugubrious  kind  here 
attempted ;  and  such  gayety  as  he  can  command  is 
stolid  and  sodden.  The  third  play,  '  Th^rese  Raquin,' 
is  a  grim  and  ghastly  drama,  full  of  main  strength  and 
directness,  and  having  the  simplicity  of  genius.  It 
failed  in  Paris,  but  has  since  had  better  luck  in  Italy. 
The  figure  of  the  paralyzed  Madame  Raquin,  ever  pres- 
ent between  the  two  murderers  of  her  son,  like  a  pal- 
pable and  implacable  ghost,  gazing  at  them  with  eyes 
of  fire,  and  gloating  motionless  over  their  misery,  is  a 
projection  of  unmistakable  power.  If  M.  Zola  had 
written  nothing  but  this  one  play,  it  would  be  impos- 
sible to  contest  his  ability. 


M.  Emile  Zola.  281 

After  the  Romanticists  had  declared  their  principles, 
they  proceeded  at  once  to  put  them  in  practice,  and  in 
'  Henri  III.'  and  '  Hernani '  exhibited  concrete  speci- 
mens of  their  theories.  The  same  obligation  rests  on 
the  Naturalists ;  and  so  far,  at  least,  it  has  not  been 
met.  For  ten  years  or  more,  M.  Zola  has  been  crying 
aloud  from  the  housetop,  that  reform  is  necessary  in 
the  drama ;  but  he  has  not  yet  proved  his  case  by 
showing  an  example  of  the  improved  play.  The  only 
visible  effect  of  his  exhortation  has  been  to  accentuate 
the  tendency  to  the  more  exact  imitation  of  reality  in 
the  scenery,  costumes,  and  accessories  of  the  stage. 
There  is  a  general  desire  now  in  the  playhouse,  wher- 
ever it  is  possible,  to  substitute  the  real  thing  for  the 
imitation  of  it,  which  has  hitherto  contented  both  stage- 
folk  and  spectators.  Within  limits,  this  taste  for  exact- 
ness is  unobjectionable  ;  but  it  may  readily  be  carried 
to  excess,  and  at  best  it  tends  to  divert  attention  from 
more  important  parts  of  the  performance,  —  from  the 
play  and  from  the  playing.  It  is  well  to  remember  that 
when  there  is  a  real  interest  in  the  drama  as  such,  there 
is  always  great  indifference  to  dresses,  scenes,  and  prop- 
erties. The  play,  the  play's  the  thing :  all  else  is  of 
small  account.  In  two,  at  least,  of  the  three  great  out- 
bursts of  the  drama,  in  England  in  Shakspere's  time, 
and  in  Spain  in  Lope  de  Vega's  and  Calderon's,  when 
the  drama  was  the  chief  expression  of  the  national  life, 
the  mounting  of  the  plays  was  simple  and  even  shabby. 

That  the  drama  at  large  is  to  be  made  over  to  fit  M. 
Zola's  theories  may  be  doubted ;  as  yet,  at  any  rate, 
there  are  no  signs  of  it :  but  that  they  will  have  a  dis- 
tinct influence  on  French  dramatic  art  in  the  immediate 
future  seems  to  me  indisputable.  This  influence  will 


282  French  Dramatists. 

be  good  in  so  far  as  it  may  make  the  coming  dramatist 
a  more  attentive  student  of  life,  a  closer  investigator  of 
human  nature,  a  more  diligent  seeker  after  truth,  which 
has  to  be  sought  long  and  earnestly  before  it  yields 
itself.  In  so  far,  however,  as  it  may  tend  to  exclude 
poetry  and  imagination,  and  to  limit  fiction  to  the  tran- 
script of  the  bare  realities  of  life,  we  may  unhesitatingly 
declare  it  to  be  doomed  to  sterility.  In  so  far  also  as 
it  seeks  to  decry  the  technical  skill  of  the  trained  play- 
wright, it  is  misleading,  and  sure  of  contradiction  by  the 
event.  It  is  the  abuse,  not  the  use,  of  technical  expe- 
rience, which  is  to  be  decried :  it  is  the  production  of 
plays  by  writers  who  have  no  other  qualification  for  the 
work  than  their  familiarity  with  the  boards.  The  true 
dramatist  cannot  ignore  the  exigencies  of  the  stage: 
he  ought,  indeed,  to  have  so  thoroughly  mastered  all 
the  tricks  of  the  trade,  that  he  can  use  them  uncon- 
sciously. In  a  word,  the  dramatist  should  know  the 
grammar  of  construction  so  well,  that  he  need  give  it 
no  more  thought  than  the  trained  speaker  gives  to  the 
grammar  of  language.  Shakspere  and  Moliere  owed 
no  small  share  of  their  success  to  their  complete  mas- 
tery over  the  tools  of  their  trade :  besides  being  the 
hack  dramatist  of  his  company,  each  was  actor  and 
manager,  and  had  a  share  in  the  takings  at  the  door. 

The  century  begins  to  draw  to  a  close ;  and  on  the 
French  stage  Romanticism  and  Realism  have  come  for- 
ward in  turn,  and  played  their  parts.  It  is  full  twenty 
years  now  since  M.  Victorien  Sardou,  the  youngest  of 
the  three  chief  Realists,  made  his  first  appearance.  It 
is  time  for  a  new  doctrine  and  for  a  new  man.  It  may 
be  that  Naturalism  will  be  the  new  doctrine,  and  M. 
Zola  the  new  man ;  but,  for  the  reasons  given  in  the  pre- 


M.  Emile  Zola.  283 

ceding  pages,  I  doubt  it.  That  he  himself  is  a  potent 
force  must  be  admitted ;  but  that  his  principles  are  des- 
tined to  triumph,  I  do  not  believe.  To  my  mind,  the 
outlook  indicates  a  return,  sooner  or  later,  to  the  well- 
made  play,  to  be  written  by  those  as  deeply  imbued 
with  the  desire  for  physiologic  and  psychologic  accuracy 
as  M.  Zola  himself.  It  will  be  a  union  of  the  school  of 
the  past  with  what  M.  Zola  proclaims  as  the  school 
of  the  future,  blending  the  best  features  of  both,  and  so 
obliterating  the  weakness  of  either  It  will,  in  short, 
be  that  commonplace  thing,  a  compromise.  With  a 
simple  and  most  skilful  symmetry  of  plot,  the  play- 
wright will  have  to  unite  the  most  vigorous  exactness 
of  character ;  and  so  shall  we  have  a  new  drama,  com- 
pounded of  the  theories  of  the  past  and  the  present. 
We  may  rest  content  with  the  prediction  of  M.  Du- 
mas, who  declares  that  whenever  there  shall  come  a 
writer  knowing  man  like  Balzac,  and  knowing  the  stage 
like  Scribe,  he  will  be  the  great  dramatist  of  the  future. 
We  may  be  sure,  too,  that  morality  will  find  full  ex- 
pression, consciously  or  unconsciously,  in  the  plays 
of  this  dramatist  of  the  future,  in  spite  of  M.  Zola's 
precept  and  practice.  We  may  be  sure,  also,  that  the 
imagination  will  not  be  left  out  of  the  compound  alto- 
gether, if  indeed  it  be  not  a  more  potent  ingredient 
than  it  is  now.  And,  if  we  may  judge  what  is  to  come 
by  what  was  gone  before,  we  may  fairly  expect  to  find 
that  the  French  drama  of  the  few  remaining  years  of 
the  nineteenth  century  will  not  reach  deep  down  into 
the  depths  of  humanity,  or  rise  far  up  in  flights  of  poe- 
try, but  that  it  will  cultivate  the  level  table-land  of 
modern  life  with  extraordinary  dexterity  and  success. 
Above  all,  we  may  safely  prophesy,  that  for  the  most 


284  French  Dramatists. 

part  and  in  general  its  note  will  be  the  note  of  comedy, 
since  that  is  the  department  of  the  drama  in  which 
the  French  have  always  and  especially  excelled.  Mo- 
liere  is  greater  than  Corneille  or  Racine ;  Beaumarchais 
lives  while  the  tragic  authors  of  his  time  are  clean  for- 
gotten ;  and  of  the  ten  dramatists  whose  plays  have 
been  considered  in  the  preceding  pages,  only  two,  the 
first  and  the  last,  Victor  Hugo  and  fimile  Zola,  are 
wanting  in  the  gift  of  comedy :  all  the  rest  —  the  two 
Dumas,  Augier,  Scribe,  Sardou,  Feuillet,  Labiche,  Meil- 
hac  and  Hale"vy  —  have  found  in  comedy  their  best 
expression.  Tragedy  calls  for  a  largeness  and  a  free- 
dom foreign  to  the  nature  of  the  Frenchman,  readily 
ruled  in  all  things.  Comedy  paints  the  manners  of 
society,  and  seeks  its  models  there ;  and  nowhere  has 
the  art  of  society  been  carried  to  more  nearly  complete 
perfection  than  in  France.  And  comedy  affords  most 
scope  for  that  dexterous  commingling  of  gentle  senti- 
ment and  lively  wit  which  the  French  excel  in,  and 
which  an  American  poet  has  set  forth  in  four  lines :  — 

"  Black  Tragedy  lets  slip  her  grim  disguise, 
And  shows  you  laughing  lips  and  roguish  eyes ; 
But  when,  unmasked,  gay  Comedy  appears, 
'Tis  ten  to  one  you  find  the  girl  in  tears." 


CHAPTER  XII. 
A  TEN  YEARS'  RETROSPECT  :  1881-1891. 

TEN  years  do  not  fill  a  broad  space  in  the  lifetime 
of  a  nation  or  in  the  history  of  a  literature,  especially 
when  they  are  as  uneventful  as  the  decade  which  has 
slipped  past  since  the  earlier  chapters  of  this  book  were 
first  published.  But  ten  years  are  ten  years  after  all ; 
and  they  afford  a  perspective  even  though  it  be  con- 
tracted. The  end  of  a  decade  gives  a  good  chance  to 
take  stock  and  to  audit  our  accounts,  deciding  what 
must  finally  be  charged  off  to  profit  and  loss.  The 
development  of  an  art  is  often  as  sluggish  as  the  pro- 
gression of  a  glacier ;  yet  if  three  stones  be  laid  on  the 
ice  in  a  straight  line,  one  in  the  centre  and  one  near 
either  shore,  the  stone  in  the  middle  will  be  moved 
forward  in  ten  years'  time,  and  by  it  we  may  make  a 
guess  at  the  rate  of  advance. 

Certainly  there  are  some  things  which  can  be  seen 
more  plainly  now  than  ten  years  ago.  One  of  these  is 
that  Romanticism  has  run  its  course.  Since  the  death 
of  Victor  Hugo  not  a  few  who  had  kept  silent  out  of 
deference  to  him  have  spoken  out  boldly.  Romanti- 
cism had  served  its  purpose  when  it  killed  Classicism, 
falsely  so  called  ;  but  when  it  tried  to  substitute  its 
own  cast-iron  creed  for  that  which  it  destroyed,  it  had 
a  hard  fight,  and  finally  it  failed.  All  but  the  best 
of  the  works  of  the  Romanticists  seem  now  almost  as 
old-fashioned  and  out-worn  as  the  works  of  the  Classi- 
cs 


286  French  Dramatists. 

cists  whom  they  superseded.  It  is  not  threescore  years 
and  ten  since  Victor  Hugo  raised  the  standard  of  revolt, 
but  already  the  victories  he  won  seem  empty  and  the 
conquests  he  made  now  acknowledge  other  masters. 
"In  art  and  poetry,"  M.  Weiss  remarks  in  his  sug- 
gestive volume  of  essays  on  '  Le  Theatre  et  les  Moeurs,' 
"  as  in  politics  and  philosophy,  there  are  but  a  very  few 
truths  —  always  the  same:  true  invention  and  whole- 
some originality  do  not  consist  in  adding  to  them,  but 
in  modernizing  their  explanation  and  their  practice." 
The  Romanticists  sought  to  substitute  for  the  Greeks, 
Romans,  and  Antiquity,  Italy,  Spain,  and  the  Middle 
Ages ;  but  this  was  not  a  true  modernization,  and  the 
inconsequence  of  their  reform  and  its  insubstantiality 
are  now  sufficiently  obvious.  No  one  of  the  many 
dramas  of  the  elder  Dumas  is  alive  now,  not  '  Henri  III.,' 
not  the  'Tour  de  Nesle,'  not  'Antony' ;  and  of  Hugo's 
plays  only  '  Ruy  Bias '  and  '  Hernani '  survive  on  the 
stage  to  this  day. 

The  success  of  the  Romanticists  was  for  a  season 
only  ;  but  it  was  indisputable  while  it  lasted  in  every 
form  of  art,  —  sculpture,  painting,  poetry,  music,  and  the 
drama.  The  great  movement  which  followed  Romanti- 
cism, and  for  which  the  Romanticists  unwittingly  irade 
the  path  straight,  was  Naturalism.  Looking  down  the 
vista  of  the  decade,  another  thing  is  quite  as  obvious  as 
the  disappearance  of  Romanticism  ;  and  this  is  that  the 
Naturalists,  despite  their  utmost  effort,  have  not  yet 
taken  the  theatre  by  storm,  —  and  the  theatre  was  almost 
the  first  stronghold  of  the  enemy  captured  by  the 
Romanticists.  Strive  as  diligently  as  it  can,  Naturalism 
has  not  yet  found  its  dramatic  formula.  And  here, 
perhaps,  is  the  character  of  the  past  ten  years ;  they 


A  Ten  Years  Retrospect.  287 

are  a  period  of  fumbling  in  the  dark,  of  feeling  toward 
the  light,  of  unsatisfactory  graspings,  and  of  unrewarded 
endeavor.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  any  appreciable 
progress  has  been  made  during  the  decade.  But,  per- 
haps, all  inquiry  into  the  existing  tendencies  of  the 
French  drama  had  best  be  postponed  until  after  a  con- 
sideration of  the  actual  work  French  dramatists  have 
accomplished  in  the  years  1881-1891. 

When  Hugo  died,  in  1885,  he  had  brought  out  in 
the  theatre  no  new  play  since  the  failure  of  the  '  Bur- 
graves  '  in  1 843 ;  and  such  pieces  of  his  as  have  been 
published  posthumously,  or  in  the  last  years  of  his 
life,  reveal  nothing  new.  They  are  exactly  what  one 
might  expect  —  little  more  than  sketches  and  frag- 
ments left  over  from  the  earlier  days  of  dramatic 
enthusiasm.  Eugene  Labiche  died  in  1888,  and  Emile 
Augier  in  1889;  and  neither  of  them  had  written  any- 
thing for  the  stage  for  more  than  ten  years  before 
his  death.  The  best  comedies  of  both  continue  to  be 
revived ;  and  while  Augier  holds  his  own  stanchly, 
Labiche  is  probably  more  highly  esteemed  now  than 
he  was  when  he  gave  up  work,  perhaps  because  it  is 
only  his  better  plays  which  are  now  familiar,  while 
the  memory  of  his  unconsidered  trifles  is  fast  fading 
away.  Of  Augier's  strong,  nervous,  honest  comedies, 
the  '  Gendre  de  M.  Poirier,'  and  the  '  Aventuriere,'  and 
the  '  Fourchambault '  seem  likely  to  continue  foremost 
in  popular  favor. 

Yet  another  of  the  eleven  dramatists  considered  in 
detail  in  the  earlier  chapters  of  this  book  has  closed 
his  career  recently,  —  Octave  Feuillet ;  and  of  the  dead 
he  was  the  only  one  criticised  in  these  pages  with 
harshness  or  severity.  Sympathy  is  the  germ  of  fer- 


288  French  Dramatists. 

tile  criticism  ;  and  for  Feuillet's  novels  and  comedies, 
for  his  theory  of  life,  and  for  his  methods  in  art,  I 
must  still  confess  a  plentiful  lack  of  sympathy.  Nor 
have  I  found  anything  to  change  my  opinion  in  either 
of  the  two  pieces  produced  by  him  since  1881.  Neither 
'A  Parisian  Romance'  nor  'Chamillac'  is  to  my  mind 
a  good  play  or  a  wholesome  spectacle.  The  sudden 
death  of  a  dissipated  atheist  at  the  cupper-table  just 
when  he  is  proposing  a  toast  to  Matter  strikes  me  as 
tricky,  cheap,  childish ;  as  Dr.  Klesmer,  in  '  Daniel 
Deronda,'  said  of  an  aria  of  Bellini's,  it  indicates  "  r, 
puerile  state  of  culture  —  no  sense  of  the  universal." 
And  a  sense  of  the  universal  is  just  what  is  wanting 
in  '  Chamillac,'  the  hero  of  which  is  a  person  of  the 
most  strangely  contorted  and  high-strung  morality,  in 
whose  sayings  and  doings  the  audience  takes  singu- 
larly little  interest,  possibly  because  the  author  wilfully 
chose  to  keep  a  secret  till  the  last  act,  leaving  the 
spectators  so  far  in  the  dark  that  they  could  not  see 
whither  the  action  tended  or  the  motives  of  the  char- 
acters. In  the  drama  obscurity  is  a  fatal  defect,  and 
a  transparent  clearness  is  an  absolute  necessity,  if 
those  who  sit  in  judgment  are  to  follow  the  story 
with  interest.  I  had  liefer  praise  Feuillet  than  not, 
for  he  was  a  gentleman  and  he  wrote  with  profound 
respect  for  himself  and  for  art ;  but  most  of  his  more 
serious  writings  seems  to  me  essentially  false  and 
insidiously  demoralizing.  But  although  I  do  not  like 
his  unreal  fictions,  it  would  perhaps  be  unfair  not  to 
suggest  that  many  accomplished  critics  have  admired 
Feuillet:  one  of  M.  Jules  Lemaitre's  cleverest  essays 
is  devoted  to  the  author  of  '  M.  de  Camors.'  Even 
M.  Lemaitre,  however,  is  moved  to  complain  that  the 


A  Ten  Years  Retrospect.  289 

rarefied  "high-life"  atmosphere  of  Feuillet  almost  makes 
him  long  for  the  barnyard  odors  of  Zola. 

MM.  Meilhac  and  Halevy  are  now  both  of  them 
members  of  the  French  Academy,  but  they  are  no 
longer  in  partnership.  The  firm  was  dissolved  nearly 
ifteen  years  ago,  and  M.  Halevy  has  not  since  written 
for  the  theatre.  Even  when  the  vogue  of  his  charm- 
ing novel,  'Abbe  Constantin,'  moved  a  manager  to 
ask  for  a  dramatization,  M.  Halevy  left  this  labor  to 
^ther  hands.  M.  Meilhac  has  not  been  idle,  and  no 
twelve  months  ^ass  without  the  production  if  a  play 
from  his  pen.  He  writes  alone  or  with  chance  col- 
laborators ;  and  his  comedies  have  always  wit,  grace, 
fantasy,  and  observation  ;  and  they  are  nearly  always 
wanting  in  the  unswerving  directness  of  subject  which 
the  stage  demands.  He  is  fond  of  chasing  two  hares 
at  once ,  and  while  he  enjoys  the  exercise,  his  guests 
often  go  without  their  game-pie.  His  pieces  delight  the 
delicate,  but  they  rarely  attract  the  broader  public,  which 
prefers  stronger  fare.  Yet  no  man  who  can  appreciate 
the  play  of  a  subtle  intelligence  and  the  exercise  of  a 
brightsome  humor  has  any  right  to  be  disappointed  at 
'  Gotte  '  or  '  Decore  '  or  '  Ma  Cousine.'  No  one  of 
these  has  any  rash  American  manager  ever  ventured 
to  adapt ;  and  Voltaire  declares  that  "  there  are  no 
really  good  works  except  those  which  go  to  foreign 
nations,  which  are  studied  there,  and  translated." 
This  is  a  hard  saying  of  Voltaire's,  and  were  it  unerr- 
ingly applicable,  it  would  bear  severely  on  Augier  as 
well  as  on  M.  Meilhac. 

'  Le  Monde  ou  Ton  s'ennuie '  was  brought  out  in 
1 88 1,  and  since  then  M.  Pailleron  has  produced  only  one 
comedy,  the  '  Souris,'  a  scanty  showing  due,  it  may  be,  to 


290  French  Dramatists. 

the  timidity  which  is  prone  to  seize  a  man  of  letters  on 
the  morrow  of  a  triumphant  success,  just  as  Sheridan 
was  said  to  be  afraid  of  the  author  of  the  '  School  for 
Scandal.'  M.  Pailleron  is  witty,  but  inclined  to  be 
precious  and  tortured  in  style.  His  spontaneity  is  the 
result  of  taking  thought,  and  his  effects  are  often  far- 
fetched. Clever  he  is,  no  doubt,  but  the  vogue  of 
'  Le  Monde  ou  Ton  s'ennuie '  seemed  accidental  and 
inordinate.  The  '  Souris  '  suffered  from  the  comparison, 
and  its  chilly  reception  can  be  measured  by  the  gibe  of 
a  fellow-dramatist  to  the  effect  that  M.  Pailleron  was  a 
lucky  fellow  since  he  had  two  of  his  plays  at  the  Theatre 
Fran^ais  at  the  same  time,  —  the  '  Souris  '  on  the  stage 
and  le  monde  ou  Ion  s'ennuie  in  the  house. 

Edmond  Gondinet,  who  died  only  two  or  three  years 
ago,  was  a  dramatist  of  ampler  gifts  than  M.  Pailleron 
and  of  a  wider  experience.  Though  his  hand  was  uncer- 
tain, and  though  he  left  behind  him  few  pieces  which 
show  him  at  his  best,  his  gifts  for  the  stage  were  indis- 
putable. He  had  originality,  deftness,  and  the  literary 
touch;  but  much  of  his  time  was  wasted  in  fruitless 
collaboration:;,  despite  the  obvious  fact  that  his  best 
work  was  done  alone  —  excepting  always  the  'Plus 
Heureux  des  Trois,'  in  the  writing  of  which  he  had 
Labiche  for  his  partner.  The  '  Parisien '  was  the  last 
comedy  of  Gondinet's  to  be  acted  at  Theatre  Fran$ais ; 
it  was  a  bright  but  inconclusive  piece,  with  just  a  hint 
of  sentiment.  After  the  play  written  in  partnership 
with  Labiche,  probably  the  most  characteristic  of  Gondi- 
net's pieces  were  the  '  Panache '  and  the  highly  amusing 
'  Gavaut,  Minard  et  Cie.' 

Perhaps  it  is  not  fair  to  M.  Bisson  to  compare  him 
with  Gondinet,  whose  successor  in  some  sort  he  seems 


A  Ten  Years  Retrospect.  291 

to  be.  Gondinet  was  a  humorous  dramatist ;  M.  Bisson 
is  merely  a  comic  playwright ;  and  the  difference  is  fun- 
damental. Yet  M.  Bisson's  '  Depute"  de  Bombignac ' 
was  acted  for  many  a  night  by  the  Comedie-Frangaise 
with  M.  Coquelin  as  the  hero ;  and  the  '  Surprises  du 
Divorce '  would  make  a  Vermont  deacon  laugh  out  in 
meeting.  The  last  play  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  had 
been  at  was  the  'Committee,'  "which  I  should  not  have 
gone  to,  neither,"  the  worthy  knight  explained,  "had  I 
not  been  told  beforehand  that  it  was  a  good  Church  of 
England  comedy."  Perhaps  it  would  be  an  exaggeration 
to  liken  the  '  Surprises  du  Divorce  '  to  the  '  Committee,' 
but  the  French  farce,  despite  its  title  and  a  stray  note 
or  two  of  bad  taste,  is  innocent  enough.  Farce  stands 
to  comedy,  I  take  it,  in  a  relation  like  that  borne  by 
melodrama  to  tragedy,  in  that  action  predominates  over 
thought,  plot  is  more  prominent  than  character,  what  is 
done  has  a  far  greater  importance  than  what  is  said  or 
felt ;  but  although  farce  and  melodrama  are  doubtless 
inferior,  they  are  quite  as  legitimate  forms  of  the  drama 
as  comedy  and  tragedy.  A  really  good  farce  is  almost 
as  great  a  rarity  as  a  good  comedy;  and  there  is  no 
need  to  despair  of  French  dramatists  as  long  as  they  are 
capable  of  a  farce  as  unfailingly  and  persistently  funny 
as  the  '  Surprises,'  a  marvel  of  constructive  skill,  with- 
out hurry  or  hesitation,  and  with  the  utmost  tribute  of 
laughter  adroitly  expressed  from  every  situation.  Even 
the  master-magician  of  the  modern  stage,  M.  Sardou, 
could  not  have  extracted  more  fun  out  of  the  theme, 
although  there  would  have  been  some  tincture  of  litera- 
ture in  the  play  had  he  written  it. 

Of  all  the  French  dramatists  to  whom  the  earlier 
chapters  of  this  volume  have  been  devoted,  M.  Sardou 


292  French  Dramatists. 

is  the  only  one  who  has  retained  his  productivity.  In 
the  past  ten  years  he  has  produced  ten  plays.  Of  these, 
'  Georgette,'  '  Marquise,'  and  the  '  Crocodile '  were  flat 
failures  ;  '  Odette  '  and  '  Cleopatre  x  were  little  better ; 
'Belle-Maman,'  'Theodora,'  and  'La  Tosca'  met  with 
a  fair  measure  of  success;  'Thermidor'  was  suppressed 
by  the  government  because  its  pictures  of  the  Revo- 
lution gave  rise  to  rioting ;  and  '  Fedora '  is  the  only 
play  of  the  ten  the  popularity  of  which  rivalled  that 
of  the  better  pieces  of  M.  Sardou's  earlier  career.  The 
most  of  these  plays  were  careless  in  workmanship,  hasty 
in  construction,  slovenly  in  their  writing.  Voltaire  says 
that  a  man  always  talks  ill  when  he  has  nothing  to  say, 
so  it  is  easy  to  account  for  the  ill-writing  in  most  of 
these  later  plays.  French  critics  did  not  hesitate  to 
accuse  M.  Sardou  of  working  for  the  export  trade  — 
of  thinking  more  of  the  possible  receipts  of  the  per- 
formances in  London,  New  York,  San  Francisco,  and 
Melbourne,  than  of  the  artistic  presentation  of  his  sub- 
ject to  the  Parisian  public. 

Four  of  these  ten  plays  were  written  for  Mme.  Sarah 
Bernhardt,  as  clever  and  as  careless  in  her  art  as  is 
M.  Sardou  in  his,  and  equally  wanting  in  respect  for  her 
audiences.  There  is  a  certain  fitness  in  their  conjunc- 
tion, and  they  seem  made  for  each  other,  the  actress  for 
the  author  and  the  author  for  the  actress,  both  being 
possessed  of  surpassing  cleverness  and  both  having  a 
taint  of  charlatanry ;  but  none  the  less  did  the  alliance 
prove  disastrous  to  both  parties  and  together  both  dete- 
riorated. '  F6dora '  is  the  first  play  of  the  four  and  by 
far  the  best;  'Theodora,'  the  second,  is  inferior;  'La 
Tosca,'  the  third,  is  weaker  yet ;  and  '  Cldopatre,'  the 
last,  is  the  least  of  all.  And  the  strongest  of  them, 


A  Ten  Years  Retrospect.  293 

'Fedora,'  is  a  brutal  play,  holding  the  spectator  breath- 
less, with  a  violent  physical  oppression,  as  though  he  was 
held  down  by  a  nightmare  he  was  powerless  to  throw  off. 
But  it  is  a  masterpiece  of  technic ;  the  joinery  is  most 
artful ;  and  the  fitting  together  of  the  various  parts  is  as 
clever  as  can  be.  Mr.  James  was  right  when  he  called 
M.  Sardou  a  "supremely  skilful  contriver  and  arranger." 
In  its  way  and  of  its  kind  nothing  better  than  'Fedora' 
has  ever  been  seen  on  the  stage ;  but  the  kind  is  one 
that  the  stage  could  spare  without  serious  loss. 

"  The  man  of  talents  possesses  them  like  so  many 
tools,  does  his  job  with  them,  and  there  an  end,"  Mr. 
Lowell  tells  us  ;  "but  the  man  of  genius  is  possessed  by 
it,  and  it  makes  him  into  a  book  or  a  life  according  to  its 
whim.  Talent  takes  the  existing  moulds,  and  makes 
its  castings,  better  or  worse,  of  richer  or  baser  metal, 
according  to  knack  and  opportunity ;  but  genius  is 
always  shaping  new  ones  and  runs  the  man  in  them,  so 
that  there  is  always  that  human  feel  in  its  results  which 
gives  us  a  kindred  thrill."  M.  Sardou  is  a  man  of 
talents,  beyond  all  question,  but  may  one  venture  to 
term  M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fits  a  man  of  genius  ?  When 
I  contrast  his  later  plays  with  M.  Sardou's,  I  am  inclined 
to  risk  the  phrase,  for  the  difference  between  the  two 
dramatists  grows  apace  ;  and  it  strikes  me  now  as  wider 
and  more  radical  than  ever  before. 

And  yet  I  doubt  if  either  of  the  two  plays  which 
M.  Dumas  has  produced  during  this  decade  has  raised 
my  opinion  of  him.  Neither  '  Denise '  nor  '  Francillon,' 
pathetic  as  is  the  first,  and  brilliant  as  is  the  second, 
and  interesting  as  they  both  are,  is  a  work  of  the 
calibre  and  range  of  the  'Demi-Monde.'  But  in  both 
can  be  seen  a  power  beyond  M.  Sardou's,  because 


294  French  Dramatists. 

M.  Dumas  has  so  sure  a  knowledge  of  the  tricks  of 
the  trade  that  he  can  dispense  with  them  and  move 
us  without  their  aid.  There  are  men  and  women  now 
and  again  in  the  plays  of  M.  Dumas,  while  in  M.  Sar- 
dou's  later  pieces  we  soon  discover  that  all  the  dolls 
are  stuffed  with  sawdust.  Of  M.  Dumas's  sincerity 
I  may  still  have  my  doubts,  although  I  incline  more 
and  more  to  the  opinion  that  M.  Dumas  at  least  be- 
lieves in  himself.  But  of  his  ability,  of  his  intellectual 
force,  of  his  gift  for  propounding  social  puzzles  and  so 
setting  people  thinking,  and  above  all,  of  his  drama- 
turgic skill  and  of  his  sense  of  form,  there  cannot  be 
two  opinions.  Both  '  Denise  "  and  '  Francillon  '  have 
a  solid  simplicity  of  structure  worthy  of  all  praise. 

In  both  plays  M.  Dumas  has  a  subject  other  than 
his  mere  story,  —  a  theme  which  the  incidents  of  his 
drama  are  intended  to  demonstrate.  In  'Denise,'  he 
raises  again  the  question  he  first  put  forth  in  '  Id^es 
de  Madame  Aubray,'  —  Is  a  single  lapse  from  virtue  suf- 
ficient to  bar  a  girl  from  marriage  to  a  man  who  knows 
her  history  and  who  loves  her  and  respects  her  in  spite 
of  it  ?  In  '  Francillon,'  the  inquiry  is,  Whether  there 
is  an  equal  obligation  on  both  parties  to  a  marriage  con- 
tract to  be  faithful  to  each  other,  or  whether  the  infi- 
delity of  the  husband  justifies  that  of  the  wife  ?  In 
'  Denise '  M.  Dumas  decides  as  he  decided  in  the 
'  Id6es  de  Madame  Aubray ' ;  and  as  is  his  wont,  he 
has  a  personal  mouthpiece  in  his  own  play,  a  conden- 
sation of  the  multiplex  Greek  Chorus  into  a  single 
personality,  charged  with  the  duty  of  delivering  a  most 
Parisian  parabasis.  In  '  Denise,'  the  name  of  this  dcus 
ex  machina  in  a  dress-coat  is  Thouvcnin  ;  and  even  the 
skill  of  M.  Dumas  is  tasked  to  the  utmost  to  get  our 


A  Ten  Years  Retrospect.  295 

attention  to  the  preachments  of  this  obtruding  character. 
In  '  Francillon,'  with  far  better  art,  the  events  as  they 
succeed  swiftly  set  forth  their  own  moral ;  and  there 
needs  no  lecturer  to  explain  the  figures.  But  '  Fran- 
cillon '  lacks  the  final  sincerity  of  '  Denise,'  where  the 
author  poses  his  problem  and  forces  us  to  accept  his 
solution.  In  the  latter  comedy  M.  Dumas  dodges  — 
there  is  no  other  word  for  it.  He  plays  a  trick  on  us, 
a  practical  joke  of  the  most  dazzling  description,  but 
still  a  practical  joke  only.  If  Francillon  is  innocent, 
if  she  has  told  a  lie  when  she  confesses  her  fault,  then 
the  comedy  is  but  a  vaudeville  a  la  Scribe,  not  to  be 
taken  seriously  ;  and  we  need  not  make  believe  that  it 
ever  happened.  M.  Dumas  has  been  playing  the  game 
for  its  own  sake,  and  not  for  the  possible  profit.  In 
mere  dramaturgic  art,  in  the  technic  of  the  playwright, 
nothing  can  be  swifter,  bolder,  better,  than  '  Francillon  ' ; 
it  is  a  marvel  and  a  despair  to  all  other  makers  of  plays. 
And  it  is  written  with  sustained  brilliancy,  —  and  of  the 
best  kind,  —  since  the  wit  is  struck  out  by  the  situations 
and  by  the  characters  and  loses  its  effect  when  detached. 
It  is  to  be  noted  that  M.  Dumas  did  not  dramatize  his 
novel,  the  'Affaire  Clemenceau,'  just  as  M.  Halevy  left 
the  adaptation  of  the  'Abbe  Constantin'  to  other  hands. 
Having  been  dramatists  before  they  were  novelists, 
M.  Dumas  and  M.  Halevy  knew  the  impossibility  of 
making  satisfactory  plays  out  of  their  stories,  so  they 
put  off  on  others  the  responsibility  of  the  attempt.  The 
one  playwright  who  has  pushed  to  the  front  in  the  past 
ten  years  is  a  story-teller,  also,  all  of  whose  dramas  are 
presented  to  the  public  as  novels  first ;  this  is  M. 
Georges  Ohnet,  the  author  of  '  Serge  Panine,'  the 
'  Maitre  de  Forges,'  the  '  Comtesse  Sarah,'  and  the 


296  French  Dramatists, 

'Grande  Marniere,' — works  which  have  had  an  enor- 
mous sale  in  the  bookstores  (and  some  of  them  a  suc- 
cess almost  as  overwhelming  on  the  stage),  and  which 
either  in  the  library  or  in  the  theatre  stand  wholly  out- 
side of  literature.  The  pihes  Ohncttes,  as  the  small 
wits  of  the  boulevard  call  them,  make  even  the  hastiest 
play  of  M.  Sardou's  seem  literary.  M.  Ohnet's  methods 
are  the  acme  of  the  commonplace,  the  conventional,  and 
the  cut-and-dried  ;  and  in  his  pieces  we  know  every 
character  almost  before  he  opens  his  mouth,  we  foresee 
every  situation  at  the  first  word  of  preparation,  and  we 
recognize  as  an  ^old  friend  almost  every  phrase  of  the 
dialogue.  "All  copyists  are  contemptible,"  Mr.  Ruskin 
has  said ;  "but  the  copyist  of  himself  is  the  most  so,  for 
he  has  the  worst  original." 

This  summary,  imperfect  though  it  must  needs  be,  of 
the  theatrical  output  in  Paris  during  the  decade,  shows 
that  no  new  French  dramatist  of  high  rank  has  come 
forward  within  this  period.  It  is  significant  of  the 
changing  condition  of  literature  in  France  that  in  the 
past  ten  years  three  novelists  of  unusual  endowment 
have  made  themselves  known  to  us,  —  M.  Guy  de  Mau- 
passant, M.  Paul  Bourget,  and  "  Pierre  Loti,"  as  he 
calls  himself.  Nowadays  the  young  man  of  high  liter- 
ary expectations  finds  his  account  rather  in  prose  fiction 
than  in  writing  for  the  stage.  At  last  the  novel  is 
almost  as  profitable  as  the  play ;  and  of  course  the 
story  pays  even  better  than  the  play  if  it  is  set  upon  the 
stage  after  it  has  conquered  success  in  the  bookstores. 

Literary  tendencies  may  be  likened  to  the  currents 
of  the  air ;  we  can  see  the  clouds  moving  above  us,  but 
we  know  that  the  winds  are  changeable  and  capricious, 
blowing  by  fits  and  starts,  and  often  two  ways  at  once. 


A  Ten  Years  Retrospect.  297 

and  it  is  not  always  easy  to  tell  which  of  the  two  strug- 
gling breezes  is  the  stronger  and  will  bring  the  final 
storm.  The  weather-wise,  nevertheless,  hardly  doubt 
that  to-day  in  France,  as  in  Spain  and  in  America, 
there  is  an  overmastering  tendency  toward  Naturalism. 
It  is  a  fact  that  four  or  five  of  the  foremost  French 
novelists  are  now  adherents  of  the  Naturalistic  school. 
Slowly  these  writers,  M.  Zola  and  M.  Daudet  at  the 
head  of  them,  have  made  their  way  to  the  forefront  of 
French  fiction,  anc"  now  they  are  seeking  for  success  in 
the  theatre  also.  At  first  they  allowed  more  practised 
playwrights  to  shape  their  stories  for  the  stage  ;  M.  Bus- 
nach  lent  M.  Zola  his  experience  in  dramatizing  '  Germi- 
nal,' and  M.  Belot  aided  M.  Daudet  in  making  a  play 
out  of  'Froment  jeune  et  Risler  aine.'  With  increas- 
ing experience,  the  novelists  are  gaining  self-reliance ; 
M.  Zola  himself  modified  '  La  Cure"e '  into  '  Rene"e '  ; 
M.  Daudet  dramatized  *  Sapho '  without  assistance ;  and 
M.  de  Goncourt  was  solely  responsible  for  the  stage  ver- 
sions of  'Germinie  Lacerteux'  and  of  the  'Fille  Elisa.' 

That  no  one  of  these  dramatizations  was  wholly 
satisfactory  is  due  chiefly  to  the  fact  that  the  novels 
of  the  Naturalists  lend  themselves  with  difficulty  to  the 
dramatizer,  as  they  are  far  less  fit  for  the  purpose  of 
the  theatre  than  the  stories  of  the  old  Romanticists, 
and  they  suffer  far  more  in  the  transfer.  A  liberal  share 
of  M.  Zola's  powers  abandon  him  when  his  fictions  are 
produced  in  the  theatre  without  the  aid  of  his  sturdy 
and  strenuous  faculty  of  description.  Rank  strength 
is  perhaps  his  chief  characteristic  ;  and  on  the  stage  he 
is  shaven  and  shorn  perforce.  '  Germinal,'  for  example, 
one  might  call  the  strongest  story  of  the  past  ten  years ; 
there  was  in  it  not  a  little  of  the  splendid  sweep  of  a 


298  French  Dramatists. 

great  epic ;  it  had  the  irresistible  and  inevitable  move- 
ment of  a  solemn  tragedy ;  but  taken  from  the  pages  of 
a  book  and  put  on  the  boards  of  a  theatre,  nearly  all 
this  evaporated,  and  there  was  little  left  but  a  rather 
vulgar  panorama  of  violence  and  suffering. 

In  like  manner  the  essential  element  of  M.  Daudet's 
'  Sapho  '  was  dissipated  when  she  was  presented  to  us  in 
the  person  of  Mme.  Jane  Hading,  and  in  only  five  acts  — 
a  division  quite  insufficient  to  show  adequately  the  flux 
and  reflux  of  contending  duty  and  desire,  and  yet  quite 
enough  to  lay  bare  the  apparent  monotony  of  the  inci- 
dents. Perhaps  it  was  the  perception  of  this  which  has 
led  M.  Daudet  to  come  forward  as  an  original  dramatist. 
His  last  two  plays,  the  '  Lutte  pour  la  Vie '  and  the 
'Obstacle,'  are  not  adapted  novels  like  'Sapho'  and 
'  Numa  Roumestan ' ;  nor  is  either  elaborated  from  a 
short  story  like  the  '  Arle'sienne.'  They  were  written 
for  the  stage  in  the  first  instance,  and  they  are  there- 
fore most  interesting  experiments,  tentative  no  doubt, 
but  indisputably  promising.  They  have  manifest  signs 
of  inexperience,  but  they  indicate  that  M.  Daudet  is 
feeling  the  way,  and  that  he  is  determined  to  "  know  the 
ropes  "  before  he  gives  up. 

Mr.  Brownell  has  told  us  that  "of  every  problem 
which  the  French  artist  attacks,  he  knows  in  advance 
various  authoritative  and  accepted  solutions,"  and  that 
"  irresistibly  he  is  impelled  to  take  advantage  of  these." 
In  no  art  is  this  truer  than  in  the  dramaturgic,  and  as 
a  result  there  is  no  art  more  bound  by  convention.  In 
no  other  form  of  literary  endeavor  is  it  as  difficult  to 
get  free  from  the  shackles  of  tradition.  So  it  happens 
that  while  the  technic  of  many  French  plays  is  abso- 
lutely impeccable,  they  have  the  smooth  perfection  of 


A  Ten  Years  Retrospect.  299 

machine-work.  As  Mr.  Brownell's  Italian  fellow-traveller 
said  to  him,  the  French  "  charge  you  more  for  potatoes 
au  naturel  than  for  potatoes  served  in  any  other  way." 
M.  Daudet  is  one  of  those  who  are  discovering  by  per- 
sonal experience  that  it  is  more  difficult  for  a  French- 
man to  serve  potatoes  au  naturel  than  saut/es  or  souffltes, 
as  his  countrymen  have  been  accustomed  to  see  pota- 
toes served. 

M.  Henri  Becque  is  another.  M.  Becque  is  unlike 
his  fellow-Naturalists  in  that  he  is  a  dramatist  primarily, 
and  not  at  all  a  novelist.  He  is  the  author  of  the 
'Corbeaux'  and  of  the  '  Parisienne,'  plays  of  a  hard 
originality  both  of  them,  of  a  dark  vigor  and  of  an 
uncompromising  directness.  Both  of  them  have  been 
acted  by  the  Com6die-Frangaise ;  and  neither  met 
with  popular  approval,  notwithstanding  its  remarkable 
qualities.  M.  Becque  is  a  leader  in  the  search  for  a 
new  theatrical  formula.  He  declares  that  the  existing 
dramatic  moulds  are  hopelessly  worn  out.  He  hates 
the  "patent  buffer-and-coupler "  play  quite  as  much  as 
Mr.  Howells,  and  with  a  far  deeper  understanding  of 
the  principles  which  underlie  the  art  of  play-making. 
Yet  M.  Becque  in  his  distaste  for  the  conventional  is 
on  the  verge  of  denouncing  all  convention,  forgetting 
that  convention  is  the  foundation  of  every  art.  In  the 
drama,  for  example,  it  is  a  condition  of  the  existence  of 
the  art,  that  the  fourth  side  shall  be  taken  off  the  room 
so  that  the  spectators  can  see  what  is  going  on  within. 
It  is  a  condition  also  that  the  actors  shall  so  raise  their 
voices  above  the  ordinary  and  so  face  the  footlights, 
that  the  audience  can  hear  them.  The  comedian  must 
allow  for  the  perspective  of  the  stage,  and  therefore  he 
cannot  act  as  he  would  really  in  life,  but  with  just  suffi- 


300  French  Dramatists. 

cient  exaggeration  or  emphasis  that  he  may  appear  to 
be  absolutely  natural  when  seen  from  afar.  So  also  the 
dramatist  must  simplify,  explain,  make  clear,  condense, 
and  heighten  his  story,  that  it  may  be  presented  com- 
pletely within  two  or  three  hours,  so  that  a  thousand 
men  and  women  of  average  intelligence  can  apprehend 
its  movement  and  its  meaning.  I  have  no  desire  to 
defend  the  "patent  buffer-and-coupler "  play  —  far  from 
it ;  but  if  I  am  going  a  journey  unto  a  far  country,  I 
know  that  a  proper  buffer-and-coupler  will  spare  me 
many  a  jolt. 

The  Naturalists,  like  all  reformers,  are  inclined  to  be 
intolerant.  They  are  prone  also  to  claim  all  the  virtue 
for  their  own  party.  But  it  was  a  professional  play- 
wright, a  master  of  every  secret  of  the  dramaturgic  art, 
M.  Alexandre  Dumas  fits,  who  broke  the  bonds  of  the 
Scribe  formulas  forty  years  ago  and  let  a  flood  of  fresh 
air  into  the  theatre.  M.  Meilhac,  in  collaboration  with 
M.  Halevy,  and  with  other  of  his  chance  assistants,  and 
alone,  has  repeatedly  served  a  most  appetizing  dish  of 
potatoes  an  naturel.  So  did  Gondinet,  now  and  again. 
So  once,  in  a  way,  did  two  hardened  veterans  of  the 
theatre,  MM.  Blum  and  Toche",  in  '  Paris  Fin-de-Siecle,' 
a  play  as  plotless  and  as  amusing  as  any  one  could  wish, 
a  satirically  humorous  collection  of  scenes  from  real  life, 
strung  together  anyhow.  Here  occasion  serves  to  say 
that  it  is  only  an  experienced  cook  who  can  prepare  a 
simple  dish,  and  that  the  "  picture  of  real  life  "  is  most 
likely  to  be  painted  by  the  men  who  best  understand  all 
the  devices  of  the  studio ;  neither  Mr.  Harrigan  nor  the 
author  of  the  'Old  Homestead '  is  a  novice. 

It  is  a  strange  truth  also  —  and  it  is  one  that  helps 
to  explain  the  lack  of  success  the  Naturalists  have  met 


A  Ten  Years  Retrospect.  301 

with  in  the  plays  they  have  produced  as  yet  —  that 
while  a  man  may  be  a  pessimist  alone,  in  a  multitude 
he  is  inclined  to  be  an  optimist.  By  himself,  at  his 
own  fireside,  he  may  be  eager  to  gaze  on  a  picture  of 
total  depravity,  and  to  exalt  '  Barry  Lyndon '  over 
'Henry  Esmond'  as  the  more  enjoyable  work  of  art; 
yet  in  company  with  his  fellows,  in  the  seats  of  a  thea- 
tre, he  likes  a  suggestion  of  heroism  or  self-sacrifice, 
and  he  is  moved  to  resent  M.  Zola's  habit  of  holding 
an  inquest  on  humanity  in  the  presence  of  the  corpse. 
So  far  the  Naturalists  have  found  it  very  difficult  to  over- 
come the  desire  for  idealization  which  seems  to  exist 
among  the  body  of  play-goers,  although  this  very  mass 
is  composed  of  individuals  who  are  ready  enough  tc 
read  '  Sapho '  and  '  Germinal '  at  home.  And  the  plain 
speaking  also  which  a  man  will  stand  when  it  is  a 
whisper  in  his  private  ear,  shocks  him  into  protest 
when  he  touches  elbows  with  some  hundreds  of  his 
fellow-men. 

A  consciousness  of  this  curious  fact  has  been  the 
cause  of  the  most  peculiar  development  in  the  French 
stage  during  the  past  ten  years.  This  is  the  founding 
of  the  Theatre  Libre.  M.  Antoine,  an  enthusiast  for 
the  drama  and  an  extremist  in  his  application  of  the 
doctrines  of  Naturalism,  has  given  a  series  of  subscription 
performances  in  Paris  during  the  past  five  or  six  win- 
ters, at  which  he  has  produced  plays  of  the  new  school 
such  as  had  no  hope  of  acceptance  by  the  managers  of 
the  regular  theatres.  Among  the  pieces  he  has  brought 
out  for  two  or  three  performances  only  are  Tolstoi's 
'  Powers  of  Darkness  '  and  Ibsen's  '  Ghosts.'  Another 
is  M.  Hennique's  matter-of-fact  tragic  sketch,  'La  Mort 
du  Due  d'Enghien.'  Yet  another  is  M.  de  Goncourt's 


302  French  Dramatists. 

'Fille  Elisa.'  All  of  these  are  experiments  most  curi- 
ous to  witness.  And  all  of  them  have  had  the  advan- 
tage of  the  undeniably  effective  stage-management  of 
M.  Antoine,  who  has  taught  a  trick  or  two  to  his 
predecessors.  But  many  of  the  plays  he  has  produced 
have  been  both  dirty  and  dull ;  and  most  of  them  have 
been  hard,  cold,  unfeeling,  laboriously  unconventional, 
wholly  devoid  of  inspiration.  The  Theatre  Libre  has 
been  little  more  than  a  dramatic  dissecting-room  for 
the  dreary  exhibition  of  offensive  subjects.  That  it 
exists,  however,  that  it  is  sustained  year  after  year, 
that  its  performances  excite  ardent  discussion,  —  these 
are  all  signs  of  the  vitality  of  the  drama  in  France, 
even  if  they  have  no  further  significance. 

To  sum  up  the  ten  years,  1881-1891,  and  to  declare 
their  total  value  is  not  yet  possible,  although  it  is  easy 
to  see  that  the  decade  has  been  a  time  of  transition  — 
like  every  other  decade  of  the  world's  history.  No  new 
dramatist  has  taken  his  place  by  the  side  of  Augier, 
M.  Dumas,  and  M.  Sardou.  No  new  formula  has  won 
acceptance.  There  is  an  irrepressible  conflict  between 
the  new  school  and  the  old,  but  the  result  of  the  strug- 
gle is  likely  to  be  a  slow  evolution  rather  than  a  sudden 
revolution.  And  so  best,  no  doubt ;  for  the  Jacobin 
and  the  Jacobite  are  as  dangerous,  one  as  the  other. 
It  is  to  be  remembered  also  that  the  most  diverse  colors 
in  the  spectrum  of  art,  if  we  may  so  call  it,  as  we  gaze 
at  it  through  the  prism  of  history,  range  themselves  in 
regular  order  and  melt  one  into  the  other  by  insensible 
gradations.  In  the  present  condition  of  the  French 
drama  the  extreme  Naturalists  are  at  one  end,  and  the 
extreme  Idealists  at  the  other,  —  and,  as  usual,  safety 
is  in  the  centre. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

AT   THE    END    OF   THE    CENTURY. 

IN  his  essay  on  Gray,  Lowell  said :  "  Let  us  admit 
that  the  eighteenth  century  was,  on  the  whole,  prosaic, 
yet  it  may  have  been  a  pretty  fair  one  as  centuries  go," 
and  he  added,  with  characteristic  shrewdness,  "  every 
age  is  as  good  as  the  people  who  live  in  it  choose  to 
make  it,  and  if  good  enough  for  them,  perhaps  we,  who 
had  no  hand  in  the  making  of  it,  can  complain  of  it  only 
so  far  as  it  had  a  hand  in  the  making  of  us."  Now  as 
the  nineteenth  century  is  leaving  us  for  ever,  let  us 
admit  that  it  has  been  a  pretty  fair  century  on  the 
whole,  —  not  prosaic  like  its  predecessor,  which  had  a 
hand  in  the  making  of  it,  but  essentially  poetic,  as 
perhaps  no  earlier  century  can  have  been,  in  so  far  as 
vast  vistas  of  speculation  have  been  suddenly  disclosed 
to  the  mind  of  man.  A  practical  century,  it  has  been, 
no  doubt ;  but  then  every  other  century  must  also  have 
been  practical,  since  the  day's  work  had  always  to  be 
done.  Never  before  has  man  been  less  bound  down  to 
mere  journeyman  labor;  never  before  has  life  been 
so  strangely  interesting,  with  so  constant  a  succession 
of  surprises,  due  to  our  conquest  of  nature  and  to  our 
expansion  of  knowledge. 

It  may  be  that  the  twentieth  century  —  which  the 
nineteenth  has  had  a  hand  in  making  —  will  be  prosaic 
again,  that  it  will  settle  down  and  seek  to  set  in  order 
what  its  predecessor  has  poured  out  lavishly,  that  it  will 

303 


304  French  Dramatists. 

be  content  to  live  in  the  past  rather  than  in  the  future, 
that  it  will  be  critical  rather  than  creative.  Should  this 
come  to  pass,  the  critics  and  the  commentators  will  find 
ready  for  their  investigation  and  evaluation  a  certain 
number  of  movements,  more  or  less  complete,  in  the 
hundred  years  that  followed  1800,  —  movements  of  less 
importance,  indeed,  than  the  Renascence  or  the  Refor- 
mation, or  the  Decline  and  Fall,  but  none  the  less  well 
worthy  of  inquiry  and  analysis.  For  example,  the  rise 
of  Transcendentalism  in  the  United  States  and  its  effect 
on  American  character,  —  here  is  a  theme  to  be  handled 
satisfactorily  only  after  a  due  interval  of  time.  As 
M.  Jules  Lemaitre  has  assured  us,  "criticism  of  the 
works  of  yesterday  is  not  criticism ;  it  is  conversation," 
—  a  harsh  saying  this  to  come  from  the  author  of  the 
'  Contemporains.'  Again,  the  final  weighing  of  each  of 
the  remarkable  group  of  British  writers  whom  we  are 
wont  to  call  the  Victorian  poets,  and  the  investigation  of 
the  true  relation  of  each  of  them  to  the  others  —  here 
we  have  a  subject  likely  to  task  the  best  critical  faculty 
of  the  twentieth  century.  And  a  third  theme,  as  rich 
as  either  of  the  others,  I  think,  and  as  tempting,  can  be 
discerned  in  the  development  of  the  drama  in  France 
during  the  half-century  that  stretches  from  183010  1880. 
All  that  took  place  in  the  playhouses  of  Paris  before 
the  first  performance  of  '  Hernani'  may  be  regarded  as 
but  the  preparation  and  the  prelude  of  that  startling 
event ;  and  all  that  has  happened  there  since  the  first 
performance  of  '  Le  Monde  ou  Ton  s'ennuie '  cannot  be 
considered  as  of  primary  importance  in  itself,  for  no 
one  of  the  plays  of  the  final  twenty  years  of  the  century 
is  epoch-making,  —  no  one  of  them  has  more  than  a 
secondary  importance,  as  it  either  continues  the  tradi- 


At  the  End  of  the  Century.  305 

tion  of  the  1830-1880  period,  or  more  or  less  obviously 
protests  against  that  tradition.  The  Romantic  move- 
ment made  smooth  a  path  for  the  Realistic  movement 
that  followed  it  inevitably ;  and  Hugo  and  the  elder 
Dumas  lived  to  see  their  formulas  and  their  philosophy 
disestablished  by  Augier  and  the  younger  Dumas.  But 
in  the  final  decades  of  the  century  it  was  seen  that 
Realism  had  spent  its  force,  and  yet  no  new  movement 
had  swept  forward  to  renew  the  drama  again.  No  new 
man  has  come  boldly  to  the  front  to  declare  a  fresh  set 
of  principles,  and  to  impose  his  formulas  and  his  phi- 
losophy upon  his  more  impressionable  contemporaries. 
The  last  twenty  years  of  the  century  are  not  so  blank 
as  were  the  first  thirty,  —  from  which  little  or  nothing 
now  survives  ;  but  they  supply  us  with  scanty  indication 
of  the  lines  along  which  the  drama  is  likely  to  modify 
itself  in  the  immediate  future. 

The  year  1830  is  still  a  date  to  be  remembered,  and 
the  battle  of  '  Hernani '  remains  a  picturesque  episode 
in  literary  history ;  and  yet,  as  we  look  down  on  the 
struggle  now  from  the  height  of  the  threescore  years 
and  ten  that  have  elapsed,  —  the  span  of  a  man's  life 
already,  —  the  conflict  seems  petty  and  the  result  incon- 
clusive. The  Classicists  were  feeble  folk,  all  of  them, 
and  they  had  no  strength  to  withstand  the  first  on- 
slaught; there  was  no  life  in  them  or  in  the  theories 
which  they  thought  they  were  defending ;  they  were 
dead,  even  if  they  did  not  know  it.  What  vitality  can 
there  be  in  a  criticism  which  asserts  that  tragedy  must 
fulfil  twenty-six  conditions,  while  comedy  need  fulfil 
only  twenty-two,  and  the  epic  only  twenty-three,  —  and 
which  is  ready  with  a  list  of  the  twenty-six  conditions, 
the  twenty-two,  and  the  twenty-three  ?  What  real  glory 


306  French  Dramatists. 

is  to  be  gained  by  overcoming  antagonists  as  pettily 
pedantic  as  these  ? 

The  Romanticists  began  bravely,  but  they  did  not 
persist.  They  routed  the  Classicists  readily  enough, 
but,  when  their  foes  were  overthrown,  they  did  not 
press  on  to  other  victories.  They  were  content  to  rest 
on  their  laurels ;  and  very  early  did  keen  critics  discover 
the  inherent  weakness  of  their  attitude.  Maurice  de 
Guerin,  for  example,  said  that  Romanticism  had  "  put 
forth  all  its  blossom  prematurely,  and  had  left  itself  a 
helpless  prey  to  the  returning  frost."  The  real  reason 
for  this  sterility  was  that  the  core  of  Romanticism  was 
revolt.  In  so  far  as  it  was  destructive,  it  was  success- 
ful ;  and  it  did  not  really  set  out  to  be  constructive.  As 
M.  Souriau  points  out  in  his  acute  and  scholarly  edition 
of  the  preface  of  '  Cromwell,'  Romanticism  "  is  rather  a 
reaction  than  a  renascence  " ;  and  he  quotes  from  the 
elder  Dumas  to  the  effect  that  in  those  days  the  ardent 
young  fellows  were  in  doubt  as  to  what  they  wanted, 
but  they  were  in  no  doubt  as  to  what  they  did  not  want. 

Not  only  were  their  literary  doctrines  negative  rather 
than  affirmative,  but  they  strove  to  throw  off  all  restraint 
and  to  denounce  all  rule.  As  a  typical  hero  they  were 
prone  to  present  an  outlaw,  who  added  to  acts  that 
were  illegal  a  birth  that  was  illegitimate  and  loves  that 
were  illicit.  Hernani  is  a  bandit  and  Antony  is  a  bas- 
tard. To  the  men  of  1830,  the  most  complex  problem 
of  all  times  was  simple ;  they  saw  no  difficulty  in  the 
relation  of  man  to  society,  and  in  the  proper  restraint  of 
the  right  of  the  individual  to  assert  himself,  when  his 
self-assertion  may  be  harmful  to  the  community.  They 
proclaimed  the  complete  liberty  of  the  individual ;  and 
they  never  declared  the  duty  of  every  man  to  sacrifice 


At  the  End  of  the  Century.  307 

himself,  if  need  be,  for  the  good  of  all  the  rest.  Carried 
to  their  logical  conclusion,  their  principles  led  straight 
to  anarchy,  with  every  man  a  law  unto  himself.  As 
Thiers  said  in  1871,  when  the  French  republic  was 
fighting  for  its  life,  "The  Romanticists  —  that's  the 
Commune ! " 

Much  high-flown  eulogy  of  the  famous  books  of  the 
past  is  as  unimpressive  now  as  the  perfunctory  flattery 
of  an  epitaph  in  which  manifold  and  contradictory  vir- 
tues are  imperishably  inscribed.  The  praise  is  all  very 
well  in  its  way,  but  the  real  question  is,  does  the  famous 
book  keep  on  being  read  ?  The  proof  of  the  play  is  the 
acting.  After  two  centuries,  the  one  or  two  master- 
pieces of  Corneille  and  the  two  or  three  masterpieces  of 
Racine  still  hold  the  attention  of  French  playgoers.  But 
of  all  the  plays  of  the  elder  Dumas  none  keeps  the  stage 
to-day,  except  possibly  one  or  another  of  his  lighter 
comedies  in  which  the  Romanticism  has  been  reduced 
to  the  vanishing  point.  Of  all  Hugo's  dramas  in  prose 
and  verse  only  '  Hernani '  and  '  Ruy  Bias '  survive  in 
the  theatre.  Here  the  selection  of  time  seems  as  satis- 
factory as  it  always  must.  These  are  the  two  plays  in 
which  Hugo's  merits  are  most  abundantly  displayed, 
and  in  which  his  demerits  are  diminished.  They,  in 
their  turn,  are  beginning  to  be  considered  as  classics. 
It  was  Goethe  who  declared  that  the  important  point 
for  a  work  of  art  is  that  it  should  be  "  thoroughly  good, 
and  then  it  is  sure  to  be  classical.  I  call  the  classic 
healthy,  the  romantic  sickly."  Perhaps  it  is  a  little 
difficult  to  assert  that  '  Hernani '  and  '  Ruy  Bias '  are 
really  healthy  in  tone ;  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  they 
are  the  least  sickly  of  all  Hugo's  plays. 

One  may  wonder  what  Goethe,  would  have  thought  of 


308  French  Dramatists. 

the  Realistic  movement  that  followed  the  Romanticist. 
Would  he  have  relished  Balzac  ?  Would  he  have  found 
'  Madame  Bovary  '  healthy  ?  How  would  he  have  en- 
joyed the  '  Demi-Monde '  of  the  younger  Dumas  and 
the  'Gendre  de  M.  Poirier'  of  Augier  and  Sandeau? 
Recalling  Goethe's  profound  delight  in  Moliere,  we  may 
guess  that  the  '  Gendre  de  M.  Poirier '  would  have 
pleased  him.  But  while  the  '  Demi-Monde '  would  have 
interested  him  indubitably,  we  cannot  be  sure  just  how 
the  author  of  '  Elective  Affinities '  would  have  taken  it. 
Of  this  thing,  however,  we  may  be  certain :  Goethe 
would  have  seen  and  acknowledged  the  dramaturgic 
skill  of  Augier  and  the  younger  Dumas,  for  he  had  the 
craftsman's  liking  for  technic. 

Less  gaudy  than  Romanticism,  but  richer  as  a  topic 
for  investigation,  is  the  history  of  the  so-called  "well- 
made  play,"  la  pttce  bien  faite.  As  it  happens,  we  can 
trace  almost  every  step  in  the  career  of  this  formula,  — 
its  beginning,  its  rise,  its  development,  its  modification, 
and  its  decadence  at  last.  Suggested,  perhaps,  by 
Beaumarchais,  the  form  was  carried  to  the  highest 
point  of  mechanical  complexity  by  Scribe ;  then  it 
was  simplified  by  the  younger  Dumas  and  accepted 
by  Augier,  having  Sarcey  for  its  press-agent ;  until,  in 
the  end,  it  wore  out  its  welcome  and  was  rejected  of  the 
Theatre  Libre,  which  refused  to  be  bound  by  any  for- 
mula whatsoever. 

What  is  the  formula  of  the  well-made  play  ?  When 
Regnard,  who  followed  in  Moliere's  footsteps  more 
faithfully  than  he  knew,  imitated  the  master  also  in 
writing  a  critique  on  one  of  his  comedies  that  had  been 
attacked,  he  tried  to  show  that  the  first  act  of  his  play 
"exposes  the  subject;  the  second  ties  the  knot;  in  the 


At  the  End  of  the  Century.  309 

third  the  action  begins ;  it  is  continued  in  the  following 
acts ;  everything  concurs  in  the  event ;  the  complication 
grows  until  the  final  scene ;  the  denoument  is  drawn 
from  the  heart  of  the  subject."  Here  Regnard  comes 
very  near  to  giving  us  the  definition  we  seek.  A  well- 
made  play  is  a  piece  having  a  beginning,  a  middle,  and 
an  end  (as  every  work  of  art  ought  to  have),  and  con- 
taining nothing  that  does  not  help  in  the  movement  of 
the  plot.  In  a  perfect  play  of  this  type,  every  scene  is 
carefully  prepared  for,  and  led  up  to,  and  so  is  every 
character;  every  situation  inherent  in  the  theme  is 
treated  in  its  proper  place  and  in  its  due  proportion ; 
there  are  no  digressions,  however  alluring  the  oppor- 
tunity; and  nothing  is  allowed  to  interfere  with  the 
more  or  less  intricate  convolutions  of  the  plot.  Such  a 
play  is  the  '  Bataille  de  Dames,'  of  Scribe  and  Legouve, 
or  the  '  Pattes  de  Mouche  '  of  M.  Sardou.  Such  a  play 
at  its  best  is  likely  to  be  a  marvel  of  ingenuity  in  inven- 
tion and  construction.  Such  a  play,  when  its  writer 
was  not  a  master  mechanic  or  was  not  at  his  best,  is 
likely  to  be  hard  and  dry,  empty  and  unsatisfactory. 

It  was  Scribe  who  had  perfected  chis  mechanism,  and 
who  applied  the  formula  most  rigorously.  The  best  of 
Scribe's  plays  are  masterpieces  of  dramaturgy ;  but  the 
breath  of  life  is  not  in  them.  He  delighted  in  dexterity 
for  its  own  sake ;  and,  in  his  eyes,  the  playwright  was 
a  rival  to  the  juggler  who  keeps  three  brass  balls  in  the 
air  with  one  hand,  while  with  the  other  he  spins  a  bowl 
on  the  end  of  a  rod.  Mere  craftsmanship  can  go  no 
further ;  but  while  he  was  playing  his  tricks,  the  drama 
was  getting  divorced  from  literature.  Yet  the  influence 
of  Scribe  was  so  potent  toward  the  middle  of  the  cen- 
tury, and  he  had  so  completely  succeeded  in  imposing 


310  French  Dramatists. 

his  standards  upon  the  playgoing  public,  that  even 
authors  of  marked  individuality,  men  who  looked  at 
life  with  their  own  eyes,  Augier  and  the  younger  Du- 
mas, could  not  help  following  in  his  footsteps,  even  when 
they  were  resolved  to  go  their  several  ways.  A  certain 
artificiality,  a  certain  theatricalness,  a  certain  compla- 
cency in  adroitness,  which  we  discover  now  and  again 
even  in  their  best  plays,  may  be  set  down  as  the  result 
of  the  overwhelming  vogue  of  Scribe  in  the  days  when 
Augier  and  Dumas  began  their  careers  as  dramatists. 

Although  a  humorist,  like  Labiche,  and  a  pair  of  wits, 
like  Meilhac  and  Halevy,  chose  to  learn  the  formula  of 
the  well-made  play,  and  could  apply  it  when  they  saw  fit, 
they  rebelled  against  its  restrictions,  which  irked  their 
vagabond  fantasy.  In  some  of  their  more  frolicsome 
pieces  they  refused  to  be  bound  by  it.  They  reverted 
to  more  primitive  and  easier  formulas,  like  that  which 
Moliere  had  been  content  to  employ  in  one  or  another 
of  his  earlier  pieces, — the  '  Etourdi,'  for  example,  and 
the  '  Facheux,'  —  before  he  had  learned  how  to  achieve 
the  solid  structure  of  '  Tartuffe.'  They  did  not  develop 
their  theme  with  narrow  and  inexorable  logic ;  rather 
did  they  play  with  it,  showing  now  this  aspect  of  it,  and 
now  that.  The  '  Chapeau  de  paille  d'ltalie '  of  Labiche 
and  the  '  Boule '  of  Meilhac  and  HaleVy  are  each  of 
them  a  sequence  of  comic  scenes,  having  about  as  much 
unity  as  a  string  of  sausages.  They  are  humorous  pan- 
oramas of  life  rather  than  organic  comedies.  Their 
plots  are  so  loosely  knit  that  almost  any  act  might  be 
omitted  without  being  missed.  And  no  doubt  not  a 
little  of  the  freshness  and  the  frank  fun  of  these  pieces 
is  to  be  credited  to  the  refusal  of  their  authors  to  accept 
the  limitations  of  the  well-made  play. 


At  the  End  of  the  Century.  311 

The  partnership  of  Meilhac  and  Halevy  had  been 
dissolved  when  the  century  had  nearly  a  quarter  of  its 
course  to  run,  and  at  the  very  moment  when  the  full 
effect  of  the  plays  they  had  produced  was  beginning  to 
be  visible.  As  it  happened,  the  realist  novel  was  just 
then  entering  on  its  period  of  vogue ;  and  under  the 
lead  of  Daudet  and  M.  Zola,  not  a  few  of  the  younger 
story-tellers  came  to  believe  that  the  background  was 
quite  as  important  and  as  interesting  as  the  grouping  of 
the  characters  themselves.  This  could  not  but  have  its 
echo  on  the  stage  also.  Yet  it  is  chiefly  to  the  influence 
of  Meilhac  and  Halevy  that  we  must  ascribe  the  frag- 
mentary construction  which  is  to  be  observed  in  many 
of  the  pieces  performed  during  the  final  years  of  the 
century.  But  whereas  the  authors  of  '  Froufrou '  had 
known  from  their  youth  up  what  the  well-made  play 
was,  and  what  were  the  principles  of  its  construction, 
even  though  they  often  preferred  to  depart  from  the 
formula,  their  later  followers,  M.  Henri  Lavedan,  for 
instance,  and  M.  Maurice  Donnay,  have  not  mastered 
the  art  of  play-making  in  the  same  severe  school.  These 
younger  men,  clever  as  they  are,  and  witty  and  observ- 
ant, have  to  be  contented  with  a  casual  structure  be- 
cause they  do  not  know  any  better.  Their  works  are 
therefore  a  little  too  sketchy ;  they  are  a  little  too  lavish 
of  minor  details ;  they  are  frequently  overneglectf ul 
of  the  main  subject,  and  over  willing  to  sacrifice  the 
essential  scene  for  the  accidental  effect.  They  have 
not  gone  quite  so  far  as  the  even  more  ignorant 
enthusiasts  of  the  Theatre  Libre  who  took  the  final 
step,  and  at  one  fell  swoop  cast  aside  all  the  accepted 
principles  of  the  dramatic  art  as  well  as  all  the  ordi- 
nary decencies  of  life,  and  whose  plays  are  many 


312  French  Dramatists. 

of  them  to  be  described  as  unactable,  unreadable,  un- 
speakable. 

Underlying  the  formula  of  the  well-made  play  was  a 
sound  principle  which  the  dramatist  can  disregard  only 
at  his  peril.  This  principle  is  as  old  as  Aristotle,  who 
tells  us  that  the  plot  "must  have  for  its  object  a  single 
action,  whole  and  complete,  with  a  beginning,  a  middle, 
and  an  end,  that,  like  a  single  living  organism,  it  may 
produce  its  appropriate  pleasure."  What  Scribe  and 
his  disciples  did  was  to  cramp  the  drama  by  applying 
this  principle  too  narrowly.  The  principle  itself  is  one 
which  every  great  dramatist  has  accepted  and  obeyed, 
—  Sophocles  in  '  CEdipus  the  King,'  and  Shakspere  in 
'  Othello,'  no  less  than  Moliere  in  the  '  Femmes  Sa- 
vantes,'  and  Ibsen  in  '  Ghosts.' 

As  Aristotle  was  the  critic  and  theorist  of  the  Greek 
drama,  so  the  late  Francisque  Sarcey  was  the  critic  and 
theorist  of  the  French  drama  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Toward  the  end  of  his  career,  it  is  true  that  his  mind 
lost  a  little  of  its  former  flexibility  ;  but  this  is  only  what 
often  happens  to  old  men.  He  was  the  most  philo- 
sophic of  all  critics  of  the  acted  drama  since  Lessing. 
His  code  of  maxims  was  not  made  up  out  of  his  own 
head  arbitrarily,  or  taken  over  second-hand  from  the 
books  of  his  library ;  it  was  derived,  like  Aristotle's  and 
like  Lessing's  also,  from  a  long-continued,  very  careful, 
and  most  conscientious  study  of  the  theatre  of  his  own 
time.  He  had  the  equipment  of  a  scholar  and  the 
insight  of  a  true  critic.  He  was  extremely  expert  in 
disentangling  the  real  point  at  issue,  and  in  applying  to 
it  the  decisive  principle.  More  than  one  of  the  com- 
monplaces of  current  French  dramatic  criticism  was  an 
original  discovery  of  Sarcey's. 


At  the  End  of  the  Century.  313 

For  example,  a  favorite  phrase  of  his  was  to  the  effect 
that  in  a  given  play  the  author  had  or  had  not  shirked 
the  scene  he  ought  to  have  treated,  the  sctne  a  faire,  the 
scene  that  must  be  in  the  play.  Here  Sarcey  condensed 
into  three  words  an  inviolable  principle  of  dramatic  con- 
struction, that  the  essential  situation  of  the  story  must 
be  shown  on  the  stage  in  action.  If  the  subject  calls 
for  a  meeting  of  two  characters  at  the  crisis  of  the  piece, 
this  meeting  must  take  place  in  sight  of  the  audience. 
It  cannot  pass  behind  closed  doors  or  between  the  acts ; 
it  cannot  be  told  by  a  messenger ;  it  must  be  seen  and 
heard  directly  by  the  spectators,  who  are  expecting  it, 
although,  of  course,  they  do  not  know  just  what  it  is 
they  do  expect.  If  it  is  not  presented  to  them,  they  will 
be  disappointed ;  they  will  feel  vaguely  that  they  have 
been  balked  of  a  pleasure  somehow,  and  they  will  be 
dissatisfied.  Perhaps  one  reason  why  Sarcey  esteemed 
the  well-made  play  so  highly  is  that  it  is  always  certain 
to  contain  the  one  or  more  scenes  a  faire  implicit  in  its 
theme.  The  scene  in  which  lago  distils  the  poison  of 
jealousy  into  the  ear  of  the  unsuspicious  Othello,  the 
scene  in  which  Tartuffe  makes  love  to  Elmire  while 
Orgon  is  hidden  under  the  table,  the  scene  in  which 
Lady  Teazle  tells  the  truth  to  Sir  Peter  after  the  screen 
has  fallen,  —  all  these  are  scenes  a  faire.  In  the  final 
analysis,  what  we  seek  in  the  theatre  is  the  pleasure  the 
art  of  acting  can  bestow;  and  it  is  the  earmark  of  a 
genuine  sctne  a  faire  that  it  always  gives  the  actors 
their  best  chance. 

The  success  of  the  '  Etourdi '  and  of  the  '  Chapeau  de 
paille  d' Italic  '  shows  that  the  comic  dramatist  need  not 
always  follow  the  formula  of  the  well-made  play;  but 
in  the  final  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  in  Paris, 


314  French  Dramatists. 

the  failure  of  many  a  comedy  brisk  with  incident  and 
character  and  bristling  with  witty  speeches  is  proof 
that  a  comic  dramatist  can  disregard  the  schie  d  faire 
only  at  his  peril.  Of  course,  plot-making  can  be  over- 
done, as  Scribe  exemplified;  but  it  can  be  underdone 
also,  as  only  too  many  recent  French  plays  make 
evident.  The  proper  protest  against  the  undue  insist- 
ence upon  mere  mechanical  ingenuity  has  led  to  a 
loose  slovenliness  of  form,  which  in  its  turn  is  bringing 
about  a  reaction.  The  French,  after  all,  are  very  Latin 
in  their  likings;  they  joy  in  beholding  the  orderly 
framework  of  a  play  put  together  in  due  obedience  to 
the  traditions  of  the  craft.  They  may  tolerate  a  laxity 
of  structure  sometimes,  but  they  do  not  really  admire  it. 
The  reaction  against  the  happy-go-lucky  method  of  play- 
making  is  likely  also  to  be  aided  greatly  by  the  strong 
impression  which  Ibsen's  social  dramas  have  made 
upon  the  Parisian  public,  and  the  high  esteem  in  which 
the  Scandinavian  dramatist  is  held  by  the  more  serious 
of  the  French  critics. 

No  modern  literature  has  been  less  swerved  aside  by 
foreign  example  than  the  French ;  and  none  has  gone 
on  its  own  way  with  less  hesitation ;  and  yet  in  the 
course  of  history  French  literature  has  received  a  suc- 
cession of  vivifying  shocks  from  one  foreign  source  or 
another.  In  the  Renaissance  it  was  Italy  that  gave 
this  stimulus ;  to  Corneille  it  came  from  Spain,  and  to 
Rousseau  from  England;  the  share  of  Germany  in 
bringing  to  pass  the  Romanticist  revolt  is  large  enough, 
although  perhaps  not  to  be  declared  with  precision. 
The  latest  irritants  come  from  still  further  North, — 
from  Russia  and  from  Scandinavia.  Just  what  effect 
the  example  of  Tolstoy  will  have  on  the  French  drama 


At  the  End  of  the  Century.  315 

no  one  can  even  venture  to  guess  now ;  as  the  Russian 
is  known  chiefly  as  a  novelist  and  scarcely  at  all  as  a 
dramatist,  his  influence  on  the  writers  of  plays  is  likely 
to  be  somewhat  indirect, — although  to  say  this  is  not 
to  say  that  it  may  not  in  time  prove  to  be  powerful. 
Yet  I  doubt  if  it  will  be  very  potent,  except  in  so  far 
as  his  broad  toleration,  his  immense  sympathy,  his 
abundant  compassion,  may  be  contagious  and  may  help 
to  soften  the  hardness  and  the  contempt  which  are 
marked  characteristics  of  the  writings  of  Flaubert  and 
of  his  school.  On  the  whole,  Tolstoy's  ideal  is  too 
remote  from  that  of  the  French  themselves,  for  them 
to  be  able  to  cherish  it  and  to  adopt  it. 

But  Ibsen  is  a  dramatist ;  so  far  as  mere  dramaturgic 
skill  goes,  he  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  dramatists. 
Almost  every  one  of  his  social  dramas  has  been  per- 
formed in  Paris ;  and  even  though  some  of  them  have 
been  acted  but  two  or  three  times,  still  they  have  been 
seen  on  the  stage,  —  the  only  true  proving-ground  of  a 
genuine  dramatist's  work.  Few  of  these  plays  really 
pleased  the  Parisians,  —  and  why  should  they  ?  Ibsen 
is  not  Gallic,  but  very  Scandinavian ;  he  is  not  at  all 
gay,  indeed  he  is  austere.  But  after  they  had  seen  a 
certain  number  of  these  Scandinavian  austerities,  they 
came  away  dissatisfied  with  the  ordinary  Parisian  play. 
However  inacceptable  their  ethical  code  may  seem  some- 
times to  us  Anglo-Saxons,  the  French  are  moralists  to 
the  marrow ;  and  what  they  seek  on  the  stage  is  "  a 
picture  of  life,  —  which  is  also  a  judgment."  They 
may  not  have  recognized  the  picture  of  life  to  which 
Ibsen  called  their  attention,  and  they  may  have  refused 
to  accept  his  judgment  on  the  case  presented ;  but  they 
could  not  but  see  where  Ibsen  had  set  a  higher  stand- 


316  French  Dramatists. 

ard,  ethically  and  esthetically,  than  their  own  later 
dramatists. 

The  symbolism,  the  vagueness,  the  mysticism  — 
which  to  many  of  us  are  the  least  interesting  phase  of 
Ibsen's  later  works  —  puzzled  the  Parisians  repeatedly. 
Many  of  the  characters  he  had  projected  into  life  were 
far  too  bold  and  reckless  in  asserting  their  right  to  live 
out  their  own  lives  in  their  own  way,  to  please  a  people 
governed  by  the  social  instinct  as  the  French  are.  The 
occasional  morbidness,  the  lack  of  wholesome  material 
sometimes,  the  merely  Scandinavian  problem  presented 
once  or  twice  in  place  of  one  of  the  eternal  and  univer- 
sal puzzles  of  human  existence,  —  all  these  things  tended 
to  disconcert  the  French  playgoing  public.  But  no 
people  could  more  heartily  appreciate  Ibsen's  merciless 
logic  and  his  severity  of  form. 

It  may  be  fanciful  in  me,  but  I  have  always  wondered 
whether  or  not  the  social  dramas  of  Ibsen  are  what 
they  are,  because  the  militant  comedies  of  the  younger 
Dumas  preceded  them, — just  as  these  comedies  in 
their  turn  are  what  they  are  because  they  had  for  fore- 
runners Scribe's  ingenious  plays.  Scribe  had  a  complex- 
ity of  plot,  and,  so  far  as  may  be,  no  moral  whatsoever. 
Dumas  did  away  with  the  half  of  Scribe's  machinery ; 
and  he  insisted  on  pointing  the  moral,  getting  up  him- 
self to  declare  it,  if  occasion  served.  Now  Ibsen  has 
gone  a  step  farther,  profiting  by  the  labors  both  of 
Scribe  and  Dumas,  and  having  studied  their  works 
diligently.  He  is  now  able  to  make  the  plots  of  his 
plays  seem  perfectly  simple,  although,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  they  are  often  very  elaborate ;  and  the  moral 
which  is  explicit  in  Dumas,  Ibsen  has  intensified  by 
keeping  it  implicit.  His  craftsmanship  is  so  masterly 


At  the  End  of  the  Century.  317 

that  the  French  are  glad  to  claim  it ;  Sarcey  called  the 
'  Doll's  House  '  a  French  play,  —  except  in  the  arbitrary 
departure  of  Nora  in  the  final  act. 

This  mastery  of  dramatic  form  is  another  quality  of 
Ibsen's  which  the  next  generation  of  French  play- 
wrights will  probably  seek  to  acquire.  Already  has 
M.  Paul  Hervieu,  in  the  '  Loi  de  1'homme,'  and  in  other 
pieces,  succeeded  in  attaining  a  certain  plain  simplicity, 
not  unlike  Ibsen's.  Perhaps  also  the  directness  of  one 
or  two  of  Mo  Jules  Lemaitre's  plays  may  be  ascribed 
likewise  to  Ibsen's  severe  example.  But  it  is  hard  for 
M.  Lemaitre  to  lay  aside  his  irony;  and  irony  —  not 
the  tragic  irony  of  Sophocles,  but  the  disintegrating 
comic  irony  of  Renan  —  is  fatal  to  the  success  of  a 
dramatist.  No  audience  is  willing  to  be  laughed  at; 
it  has  not  paid  its  money  to  serve  as  a  butt.  That 
Ibsen  is  somewhat  deficient  in  humor  is  probably  to  his 
advantage.  Certainly  no  taint  of  comic  irony  ever  mars 
the  force  of  his  straightforward  sincerity. 

Perhaps  the  French  do  not  find  a  complete  satisfac- 
tion in  the  solutions  that  M.  Hervieu  and  M.  Lemaitre 
propose  for  the  problems  they  have  propounded.  But 
Ibsen  has  not  always  solved  those  he  has  presented,  as 
Mr.  Howells  reminds  us:  —  "It  is  not  by  the  solution 
of  problems  that  the  moralist  teaches,  but  by  the  ques- 
tion that  his  handling  of  them  suggests  to  us  respecting 
ourselves.  Artistically  he  is  bound,  Ibsen  as  a  drama- 
tist is  bound  to  give  an  esthetic  completeness  to  his 
works,  and  I  do  not  find  that  he  ever  fails  to  do  this ; 
to  my  thinking  they  have  a  high  beauty  and  propriety ; 
but  ethically  he  is  bound  not  to  be  final ;  for  if  he  forces 
himself  to  be  final  in  things  that  do  not  and  can  not 
end  here,  he  becomes  dishonest,  he  becomes  a  Nordau. 


318  French  Dramatists. 

What  he  can  and  must  do  ethically  is  to  make  us  take 
thought  of  ourselves,  and  look  to  it  whether  we  have  in 
us  the  making  of  this  or  that  wrong ;  whether  we  are 
hypocrites,  tyrants,  pretenders,  shams,  conscious  or  un- 
conscious ;  whether  our  most  unselfish  motives  are  not 
really  secret  shapes  of  egotism  ;  whether  our  convictions 
are  not  mere  brute  acceptances;  whether  we  believe 
what  we  profess ;  whether,  when  we  force  good  to  a 
logical  end,  we  are  not  doing  evil." 

The  most  popular  play  of  the  final  decade  of  the 
century  presents  no  problem  whatsoever  and  avoids  any 
criticism  of  life.  Apparently,  its  author  has  never  heard 
of  Ibsen,  and  never  seen  any  play  by  the  younger 
Dumas.  He  has  not  taken  his  stand  on  firm  reality, 
but  has  preferred  to  build  an  airy  fantasy,  as  unsub- 
stantial as  it  is  charming.  His  aim  has  not  been  to 
enlighten,  but  merely  to  entertain ;  and  he  has  accom- 
plished his  purpose  superabundantly.  Since  '  Hernani,' 
no  play  has  been  so  enthusiastically  acclaimed  at  its 
first  performances  as  the  '  Cyrano  de  Bergerac '  of 
M.  de  Rostand,  its  humorously  poetic  hero  being  acted 
with  incomparable  variety  by  the  most  accomplished 
of  contemporary  comedians,  M.  Coquelin.  This  play, 
which  pleased  many  thousands  of  spectators,  not  only 
in  France,  but  also  in  Germany,  in  Italy,  and  in  Amer- 
ica, was  joyfully  hailed  by  certain  Parisian  critics  as  the 
harbinger  of  a  new  springtime  for  the  French  poetic 
drama.  M.  Rostand  was  welcomed  as  a  reviver  of  the 
best  traditions,  and  he  was  eulogized  as  one  who  —  like 
Corneille  with  the  '  Cid,'  and  like  Hugo  with  '  Hernani ' 
—  had  set  a  new  model  which  later  dramatists  might 
vainly  strive  to  surpass. 

It  may  be  bad  manners  to  look  Pegasus  in  the  mouth 


At  the  End  of  the  Century.  319 

or  to  smile  at  the  cooing  murmurs  of  delight  that  run 
round  the  Porte  Saint  Martin  at  the  exquisite  delivery 
of  a  mellifluous  couplet ;  and  there  is  no  disputing  that 
'  Cyrano  de  Bergerac '  is  very  clever  and  very  adroit, 
that  it  has  color  and  vivacity,  that  if  it  lacks  passion, 
it  has  at  least  sentiment,  that  if  it  wants  real  action,  it 
has  abundant  movement,  and,  above  all,  that  it  makes 
an  extraordinarily  wide  appeal  —  to  those  who  like  love- 
making  and  romance,  to  those  who  relish  easy  wit  and 
lively  humor,  and  to  those  who  revel  in  combats  and  in 
the  peril  of  life  and  death.  But  it  cannot  fairly  be 
called  an  epoch-making  novelty.  It  is,  instead,  an  old 
thing  done  in  a  new  way.  The  plot  is  put  together  by 
a  playwright  who  has  absorbed  every  device  of  the 
elder  Dumas,  and  the  verse  is  written  by  a  lyrist  who 
has  learned  every  trick  of  the  Parnassians.  It  is,  in 
short,  an  old-fashioned  piece,  —  but  with  all  the  modern 
improvements. 

An  adverse  critic  might  suggest  that  M.  Rostand  had 
used  his  story  to  display  his  verbal  virtuosity.  He  has 
a  very  pretty  lyric  gift,  —  always  a  rare  endowment 
among  the  French.  He  can  touch  wit  with  sentiment, 
and  he  can  thrust  a  hint  of  pathos  into  an  extravagant 
simile.  He  combines  clearness  and  elegance,  and  his 
verse  is  both  facile  and  finished.  The  quality  of  his 
poetry  is  almost  exactly  that  of  the  vers  de  socitte,  —  the 
verse  in  lighter  vein  of  Prior  and  Mr.  Austin  Dobson, 
of  Locker  and  Dr.  Holmes.  M.  Rostand  is  brilliant 
and  buoyant  as  Praed  is,  for  example;  and  Cyrano's 
description  of  a  kiss  may  be  compared  curiously  with 
the  stanza  in  the  '  Chaunt  of  the  Brazen  Head,'  in 
which  the  lyrist  liltingly  tells  us  what  he  thinks  of 
love. 


320  French  Dramatists. 

1  Cyrano  de  Bergerac,'  for  all  its  bravery  of  epithet 
and  all  its  briskness  of  motion,  is  at  bottom  too  slight 
a  thing  to  serve  as  the  corner-stone  of  a  new  school.  It 
contains  no  promise  of  future  development,  nor  do  the 
author's  other  plays,  less  coruscating  than  '  Cyrano,'  but 
possessing  the  same  qualities.  And  even  in 'Cyrano' 
itself,  there  is  no  character  of  real  originality  or  of 
genuine  verity ;  it  is  peopled  only  by  the  masks  of  the 
stage.  The  play  itself  lacks  depth  and  breadth ;  it  is 
without  ultimate  sincerity ;  it  has  as  its  basis  an  unwor- 
thy trick,  and  it  holds  up  before  us  as  a  hero  whom  we 
are  to  honor  with  our  approval  and  with  whom  we  are 
expected  to  sympathize,  a  man  engaged  in  deceiving 
a  woman  into  a  marriage  certain  to  bring  her  misery  so 
soon  as  she  discovers,  though  too  late,  the  dulness  of 
the  man  she  has  wedded.  M.  de  Rostand's  play  is  clean 
externally,  but  it  is  essentially  immoral,  —  in  so  far  as  it 
erects  a  false  standard  and  parades  a  self-sacrifice  which, 
to  use  Mr.  Howells's  apt  phrase,  is  "  a  secret  shape  of 
egotism." 

Whatever  the  real  value  of  '  Cyrano  de  Bergerac,'  it 
is  not  to  be  denied  that  it  was  the  last  play  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  to  achieve  a  triumph  at  once  immediate 
and  widespread.  Yet  there  is  no  dispute  about  the  fact 
that  it  stands  frankly  outside  the  line  along  which  the 
French  drama  has  been  developing  in  the  past  fifty 
years.  M.  Rostand's  piece  is  not  "a  picture  of  life, 
which  is  also  a  judgment "  ;  and  unless  it  is  this,  no 
play  is  likely  long  to  satisfy  the  French.  That  is  what 
we  find  in  the  '  Tartuffe '  of  Moli6re,  in  the  '  Mariage 
de  Figaro '  of  Beaumarchais,  in  the  '  Demi-Monde '  of 
Dumas  fils,  and  the  'Gendre  de  M.  Poirier'  of  Augier 
and  Sandeau.  It  is  what  we  find  in  the  plays  of  M.  Paul 


At  the  End  of  the  Century.  321 

Hervieu,  on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the  other,  in  those  of 
M.  Henri  Lavedan. 

If  we  may  guess  at  the  future  from  our  knowledge 
of  the  past,  we  must  expect  that  the  masterpiece  of  the 
French  theatre  in  the  twentieth  century  will  be  like 
those  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  of  the  eighteenth 
century  and  of  the  seventeenth.  It  will  be  a  comedy 
almost  on  the  verge  of  stiffening  into  the  serious  drama. 
It  will  deal  gravely  and  resolutely  with  life,  but  it  will 
also  be  charged  with  satire  and  relieved  by  wit.  Per- 
haps it  will  not  be  robustly  comic ;  —  but  is  '  Tartuffe  ' 
really  so  very  laughter-provoking  ?  Its  subject  will  be 
logically  thought  out  and  symmetrically  presented,  —  for 
the  dramatic  anarchists  of  the  Theatre  Libre  are  already 
routed  and  dispersed.  Its  craftsmanship  will  be  sure; 
and  it  will  have  the  prime  merits  of  simplicity,  of  straight- 
forwardness, and  of  sincerity. 


